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HE Reformation
IN France
Richard Heath.
mi^sssMmmfilsmfeSssm^iS'X-'^'-
LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
PRINCETON, N. J.
BR 370 .H4 1886
Heath, Richard
The reforn,ation in France
(From an old print in the British Museum.
C^^ Cburclj Prstotn Scries
II /#S«*^»^
Jill 2 1 1^2?'
THE REFORMATION "%owi^ai>'^
IN FRANCE
from ibo Jlatmi of Jlcform io i\n Ecbocation
o
O'
of tbc (Kbict iDf STantes
<^*
EICHAKD HEATH
iliitJtoi' of ' Ilistoric Landmarlis,^ etc.
iL0nt<0U
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
56, Paternoster Row; G5, St. Paul's Churchyard
AND 164, Piccadilly
1886
Butler & Tanner.
Tlie SeUvooi Printinjj Works,
Frome, and London,
CONTENTS.
BOOK I,
The Movement for Refoem until the Edict of Nantes.
CHAPTER
I. Prelude
IT. Day-break
III. Calvin and Geneva
IV. Light and Joy flood France .
V. Tlie Five Scholars of Lausanne .
VI. The Martyrs and the Psalter
VII. New Shepherds and a New Fold .
VIII. The Calvinistic Constitution at Work
IX. Eeform and ' the Gentlemen of France '
X. Science and Art among the early Huguenots
XI. Catherine de Medici
XII. The Conference at Poissy
XIII. Terrible Position of the Huguenots
XIV. Killing or being Killed .
XV. Demoralization
XVI. Charles IX. and Cohgny
XVII. The Murder of Coligny
XVIII. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew
XIX. After St. Bartholomew
XX. New Dangers
XXI. The Edict of Nantes .
PAGE
9
14
21
25
33
37
38
42
47
54
57
60
67
72
78
82
85
86
92
96
97
BOOK II.
From the Edict of Nantes to its Revocation.
I. Prosperous but Declining . . . * .
II. Facilis descensus Averni
III. The Counter-Reformation in France
IV. In their Misery the People Worship the Devil
5
103
106
107
111
CONTENTS.
ciiArTF.n
V. A Last Effort at Reconciliation .
VI. Persecution Ivccomracuces ....
VII. Goin^' down to E<i;ypt for Help
VI 1 1. Jesuit Con}) (VKtat at Beam ...
IX. The Huguenot Commonwealth at La iiochello
X. Huguenot Learning and Methods of Education
half of the Seventeenth Century)
XI. Louis XIII, and Ilichelieu .
XIL The Siege of La Rochelle
Xlill. The End of Political Protestantism
XIV. Passing under the ' Caudine Forks '
XV. The Huguenot Pulpit and Protestant Art
the Seventeenth Century) .
XVI. The Protestant Churches of France no long^
a National Character
XVH. Further Inroads on Huguenot Liberty
XVHI. The Huguenots and the King
XIX. Public Opinion and the Huguenots
XX. The Conversion and Jubilee of the Kin^
a New Series of Persecutions
XXI. The Booted Mission .
XXII. Some Huguenots Attempt to Appeal to the
of France ....
XXHI. The Second Dragonnades
XXIV. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes
ftlrst
middle ol
er allowed
inaugurate
Conscience
PAGE
114
116
118
120
122
125
131
133
136
130
110
148
154
157
159
161
170
173
177
186
DATES USEFUL IN THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF
THE REFORMED CHURCHES OF FRANCE.
Birth of William Fare! . . 1481)
First Publication of the Bible
in French 1498
Birth of John Calvin . . 1500
Lefevre announces the Doc-
trine of Justification by
Faith 1512
Luther at the Diet of Worms 1521
The Doctrines of the Refor-
mation preached at Meaux 1521
Francis Lambert, a Priest,
married 1523
MartyrdomofLeclercatMetz,
and of Pavayes at Paris . 1 52 1
Farel preaches the Reforma-
tion in France and Switzer-
land 1522-24
Sack of Rome 1527
Martyrdom of Louis de Bcr-
guin 1529
Peace of Cambray .... 1529
Death of Zwingli .... 1531
Immense Interest in Reform
ill France 1533
The Placard against the Mass 1534
Great Persecution .... 1535
Publication of the Insti-
tution of the Christian
Religion 1535
Calvin at Geneva .... 1536
Loyola founds the Jesuit
Society 1540
Council of Trent .... 1543
Death of Martia Luther . . 15 16
Accession of Henry II. . . 1517
Martyrdom of Five Students
at Lyons 1553
Peace of Augsburg .... 1555
Accession of Philip II., King
of Spain 1555
Elizabeth, Queen of England 1558
Accession of Francis II. . . 1559
Reformed Chui'ches organ-
ized in Paris and in Nimes 1559
Martyrdom of Anne Dubourg 1559
First National Synod at Paris 1559
Conspiracy of Amboise . . 1560
Accession of Charles IX. . 1560
States- General called . . . 15'i0
National Synod at Poitiers . 1561
Conference at Poissy . . . 1561
Seizui-e of Churches at Nimes 1561
Decree of Pacification, Jan. 12 1562
Iconoclasm at Paris . . . 1562
Massacre at Vassy . Mar. 1 1562
National Synod at Orleans . 1562
The Calvinist Lords take up
Arms .... April 11 1562
First War of Religion . 1562-63
Persecutions, Martyrdoms,
Massacres 1562-63
Guise assassinated . Feb. 18 1562
Treaty of Amboise . Mar. 19 1563
National Synod at Lyons,
presided over by Viret . . 1563
Second Civil War . . 1564-1567
Interview between Catherine
de Medici and Alva . . . 1565
Alva in the Netherlands . . 1567
National Synod at Paris . . 1567
The Michelade at Nimes
Sept. 29 1567
Battle of St. Denis . Nov. 10 1567
Conquest of Religious Li-
berty 1568-1570
Third Civil War .... 1568
Battle of Jarnac . March 13 1569
Battle of Moncontour, Oct. 3 1569
Coligny signs Peace at St.
Germain-en -laye . Aug. 8 1570
National Synod at La Ro-
chelle, presided over by
Beza 1571
Coligny and Charles IX. . 1572
Marriage of Henry of Navarre
and Margaret of Valois
Aug. 18 1572
Murder of Coligny . Aug. 24 1572
DATES.
Massacre of St. Bartliolo-
raew . . . Aug. 21-27 1572
Massacres in tbc I'l-oviuccs
Sept. 1572
Death of Charles IX. IMay 30 1574
Death of Cardiual of Lor-
raine Dec. 1574
The Leagvie or Holy Union
foumled 1570
Fourth Civil War and Peace
of Bergerac 1577
Assassination of William of
Orange 1.jS4
^lary Stuart beheaded . . 1587
Henri de Guise assassinated
Dec. 23 1587
The Spanish Armada . . . 1588
Calvinist Political Assembly
at La Eochello .... 1588
Death of Catherine de Me-
dici Jan. 4 1589
Henry III. assassinated
Aug. 10 1589
^rhe Battle of Ivry Mar. 14 1590
Abjuration of Ilcury IV".
July 25 1593
Five Protestant Political
Assemblies during . . 1595-97
The Edict of Nant.^s April 1598
Conference at Fontaincblcau
on the Eucharist . . . IGOO
National Synod at Gap . . 1603
Death of (^)ueen Elizabeth . 1G03
National Synod at La Ro-
chello 1G07
Assassination of Henry IV. IGIO
Political Assembly of the
Huguenots IGU
National Synod of Privas . 1G13
States-General 1G14
Beginning of the Thirty
Years' War ..... IGIS
Jesuit Coup cVEiat in Boarn 1G20
Political Assembly at La
liochellc 1G20
Invasion of ihe Palatinate . 1G20
Landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers in New England . 1G20
Siege of Monlaubaii . , . 1G21
Peace of Mont])cllier . . . 1G22
Death of Duplossis-Mornay 1623
National Synod of Cbarcnton 1G23
Charles I. King of England 1625
National Synod of Castres . 1626
Siege of La llochelle . . 1627-28
SackofPrivas 1627
Fall of Montauban . . . 1629
Gustavus AdolphiTs head of
the Protestant League . 1630
National Synod at Cbarcn-
ton 1631
National Synod at AlenQon . 1637
Death of Janscn, Bishop of
Ypres 1638
National Synod at Charen-
tou 1645
Peace of Westphalia . . . 1648
Commonwealth in England 1G49
Time of Rest for French
Calvinistic Churches . . 1652
Last National Synod at
Loudon 1659
Death of Cardinal Mazarin . 1661
Louis XIV. Rules as well as
Reigns 1661
Charles 11. sells Dunlvirk . 1663
Louis takes Francho Comtc
and some part of Flanders 1667
Abjuration of Turenno . . 1669
Bussuet's Expotiition of
Catholic Docti'iue . . . 1671
Colmar taken by Louis XIV. 1673
So called Conversion of
Louis XIV 1676
Louis starts the Bank of
Bribery 1677
Peace of Nimwegen — Apogee
of Louis XIV 1679
First Dragonnades .... 1681
Jurieu's Protestation of the
Huguenots of the South . 1683
Rising in the Vivarais . . 1683
The turlvs at Vienna . . . 1683
Forced Conversion of the
Bearnois 1685
Battle of Sedgemoor July 1G85
The Second Dragonnades
Autumn of 1685
Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes . . . Oct. 18 1685
THE EEFOEMATION IN FEANCE.
BOOK I.
THE MOVEMENT FOR BEFOEM UNTIL THE
EDICT OF NANTES.
I.
PHELUDE.
'I KNOW 110 words that can depict the wretched state of
the French people at this time/ says one of our most
eminent literary authorities^ writing of the period
when the doctrines of the Keformation began to per-
meate France. ' Incessant war had taken brave
young men out of the fields, and left thousands of
them dead on a foreign soil, or returned them to the
country men of debauched life, bullies, cripples. The
immense cost of these wars had been defrayed by
excessive taxes, recklessly imagined, cruelly enforced.
The lust and luxury of a debased court had grown
fat for years upon the money of the poor. Almost
every year saw the creation of new salaried officials,
whom the people had to carry on their backs, and pay
besides, for doing them the honour to be burdens.
The morals of the people were perverted, they were
impoverished, embittered, made litigious, and de-
lo THE REFORMATION hV FRANCE.
voured by lawyers before judges, of whom scarcely
one in ten was unassailable by bribe. The Church was
a machine for burning heretics and raising tithes.
Against the debasing influence of a corrupt court,
which extended among all ranks of the nobility, and
through them was displayed before the ignorant
among their fields, — against the vice bred in the
camp, and dispersed along the march of armies, or
brought home by thousands of disbanded soldiers, —
the Church, as a whole, made not one effort to estab-
lish Christian discipline. Pastors laboured only at
the shearing of their flocks ; bishops received, in
idle and luxurious abodes, their own large portion of
the wool. Instead of dwelling in their bishoprics,
and struggling for the cause of Christ, no less than
forty of these bishops were at this time in Paris,
holding their mouths open like dogs for bits of meat,
and struggling for the cause of Guise or Mont-
morenci ! ^ ^
And this state of things had gone on to a greater
or less degree for ages, for it is a very romantic notion
to suppose that in feudal times the people were any-
thing but miserable. There were possibly periods and
places in which their existence became bearable, but
as far as this world is concerned it was that of sheep
born to be shorn or slaughtered ; of bees who toiled
ceaselessly to make honey, which their masters as
regularly ate. And, owing to the feeble condition of
the French monarchy, there was probably no country
in Christendom in which the lot of the common
people was worse than it was in France. What with
seigniorial rights and ecclesiastical fees, they were so
crushed that in a merely material sense serfdom was
preferable to the miseries of such a parody of free-
' Henry Morley's Pallssy the Potter, vol. i. p. 251.
FRANCE IN FEUDAL TIMES, n
dom. Of seigniorial rights, Renaudin names no less
than ninety-three. The shearing was so close that
the peasant had to pay a tax for the use of the rain-
water in the ditches and ruts on the roadside, for the
dust his cattle made on the highway, and the honey
his bees gathered from the lord's flowers. What the
seigniors left the clergy took. There were dues for
baptisms, communion, confession, penance, masses,
betrothal, marriage, extreme unction, interment; there
were blessings to be paid for on the fields, gardens,
ponds, wells, fountains, houses newly built, grapes,
beans, lambs, cheese, milk, honey, cattle, swords,
poignards, and flags ; there were offerings to the mass,
offerings to the first-fruits, offerings of the first-born
of domestic animals, etc., etc. Had these innumer-
able payments gone to support a body of true pastors,
it would have been a bad system ; but as it was, a
considerable part found its way to the pockets of
inflaential laymen, and a still more considerable share
into those of the aristocratic rulers of the Church,
such as the Cardinal of Bourbon and the Cardinal of
Lorraine, whose shameless pluralism exceeds all belief.
While these wealthy shepherds spent their days in
court intrigues, or amused themselves with parading
as lights of the Renaissance, the actual pastors were
sunk in ignorance. Jean de Montluc, Bishop of
Valence, stated in his sermons (1559), that out of ten
priests there were eight who did not know how to
read.
In addition to all this ecclesiastical fleecing, the
royal taxes, ever increasing, became, under Francis
I., owing to his Italian wars, captivity in Spain, and
luxurious court, a burden truly frightful.
The people, during the fifteenth century, were in
such abject poverty that a famine produced results
like those which now occur in India. In 1488, misery,
12 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
pestilence, and despair carried off in Paris alone 80/JOO
victims. In 1 119, there was no harvest; the labourers
were dead or had fled ; little had been sown^ and that
little had been ravaged. The crowds round the
bakers* shops in Paris were incredible ; heaps of
starving boys and girls lay on the dunghills, dying
of cold and hunger. In 142 1, the famine was even
worse; wolves scoured the depopulated country,
scratching up the new-made graves, and even entered
Paris. No doubt things rarely reached this pitch,
nevertheless misery was chronic. The towns gradu-
ally delivered themselves from many burdens, and
ruling themselves, the citizens grew even wealthy.
But in the open country the people were still domi-
nated by the nobles, who from their unapproachable
donjons could at any time swoop down on the villages
and scour them out, setting fire to what they could
not carry off, chasing before them the herds and the
inhabitants, dishonouring the women, cruelly torturing
the men and children^ and those who could not ransom
themselves.
These things, and worse than these, went on for
ages in the presence of a Church universal and
supreme, which said enough to let the people know
that this was not the will of God, but, on the contrary,
the exact opposite to Ilis will, and yet made itself
responsible for the whole system by mixing itself up
with it, and becoming its chief support. Could any
plan have been more likely to produce discontent?
And the welcome which the Reformers everywhere
received is proof of the wide and deep discontent.
The very word Reform was in itself an evangel, but
it was rendered ten thousandfold more so than it
otherwise would have been, since its doctrine did not
merely promise a better order of society, more liberty,
equality, fraternity. It promised to make of every
THE GOSPEL OF THE REFORMERS. 13
individual who believed it a man, to lift him out of
that servile, cowardly spirit which kept him a slave
in heart as well as in body ; and this it did by making
him feel that God knew and called him personally,
asking him to enter into a personal alliance with Him,
offering him pardon and justification through the oue
atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the gift of the Holy
Spirit, and adoption into the redeemed family of God.
He who had consciously entered into this alliance, who
had felt the new, the Divine life within him, had no
fear of standing before the proudest. He felt himself
more than equal to any earthly prince, for he knew
himself to be one of God^s chosen servants, predes-
tined to eternal salvation before all worlds.
An aged man lay in the Bastille. He had com-
menced life as a poor artisan, ignorant and indigent.
He had embraced the Gospel as taught by the Re-
formers. A great artist, to whose talents the Valois
owed much. Henri III. went to visit him. ^ My good
man,' said his royal patron, ' for five and forty years
you have worked for the queen-mother and myself.
We have endured your living in your religion amoug
fires and massacres, now I am so pressed by Guise^s
people and my own, that in spite of myself I have
been constrained to put you in prison, and unless you
are converted, you will be burnt to-morrow.'
^ Sire,' replied the old prisoner, ' you have several
times said you have pity on me; but I have pity on
you, for you have uttered the words, "I am con-
strained." That is not to talk as a king ; I who have
part in the kingdom of heaven will teach you more
royal language ; and it is this, that the Guisards, all
your people, and even yourself, will not know how to
constrain a potter to bend his knees to statues, for I
know how to die.'
14 THE RKFORMAITON IN FRANCE,
II.
Day-break.
In 1521 tlie pope made a treaty with Charles Y., Em-
peror-elect of Germany, and invited him to come and
drive Francis I. out of Italy. The unfortunate inhabi-
tants of the North-eastern provinces of France soon
saw hovering on the frontier the terrible German
lanzhieclde, and trembled for themselves and all dear
to them. They knew there was no army to defend them,
the king having drained the country of its soldiers.
Fear of coming trouble made them think of God.
It was under such circumstances that the doctrines
of the Reformation were first preached in France, and
in one city especially they took root and bore much
fruit. The small episcopal town of Meaux was, as it
were, the Bethlehem of the Keformation.
Guillaume Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux, not only
wished a general Beformation of the Church, but he
did what he could to bring it about in his own diocese.
Among the men who gathered round him, Jacques
TjofC'vre stands out as the patriarch of French Pro-
testantism. He was at this date nearly seventy years
of nge, a doctor of theology in the University of Paris,
with a great reputation for learning. Born in Picardy,
in the middle of the fifteenth century, of very humbk^
parentage, Lefovre owed his distinguished position
both to the light of genius and to the light of grace.
When the doctrine of justification by faith was just
dawning upon Luther, Lefcvre was already preaching
it in France.
Among his disciples was a youth from the Dauphine,
named Guillaume Farcl, ardent in spirit and intensely
religious, who, after seeking satisfaction in vain at the
shrines of superstition, at last found it in the preaching
GUTLLAUME FAR EL. 15
of Lefevre. 'My dear Guillaume/ the old seer would
say, ^ God will renovate the world, and you will see
it/ Lefevre, like Moses, caught only a glimpse of the
Promised Land ; Farel, as another Joshua, entered in,
and living the life of a man of war, won many a battle
and set up the flag of the Reformation both in France
and Switzerland. ^If we look to dates,^ says
D'Aubigne, ' we must admit that the glory of begin-
ning the Reformation belongs neither to Switzerland
nor to Germany, but to France/
Farel was supported by other missionaries : Pierre
de Sebville, at Grenoble ; Amedee Maigret, at Lyon ;
Michel d^Arande, at Magon; Etienne Machopolis and
Etienne Renier, at Annonay ; Melchior Wolmar, at
Orleans ; Jean de Catuce, at Toulouse. These are but
names, but let us hold them sacred, for they represent
men who were apostles of purity and light.
And what was the condition of the people among
whom they went to preach ? Slaves bound in fetters
of gross superstition, their masters meanwhile careless
of every yoke, moral or religious. Bishops might be
seen pressing people to drink with them, rattling the
dice-box, yelling after rooks and deer, entering houses
of debauchery.^ A brothel was attached to the royal
palace, but no one in the court could have exceeded
the king himself in licentiousness. If any one will
examine his portraits as preserved in the Louvre, they
will see a rake's progress depicted more vividly than
anything Hogarth has imagined.
And these rulers in Church and State would listen
to any scurrility ; their tolerance was truly wonderful.
Rabelais not only satirised all classes of society, but
^ Such were the charges, and worse, Lefevre openly made
in his lectures, and they are mild to any one wbo knows the
times.
1 6 7 HE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
even tbe king himself, nay, he even passed his joke
with the pope in person, no offence being given as
long as a moralist turned the world into a pantomime,
and feathered his shafts with plenty of obscene wit.
But when the preacher seemed really serious, when he
spoke the plain truth, in solemn language, when in all
sincerity he called out for reformation, then these
cultured, vicious sons of the Renaissance very soon
cried, ' Away with him ; it is not fit that such a fellow
should live ! '
Old Paris was divided into three parts, in each of
which the dominating power centred respectively in
the Chateau, the Cathedral, and the University. Thus
the king^s power in Paris was practically shared with
the bishop and the provost of the Sorbonne. The
doctors of the latter institution, led by a theologian,
Noel Beda, and supported by the chancellor, Antoine
Duprat, together with the monks, led the persecution.
When the scribes, lawyers, and Pharisees, the Sor-
bonne, the Parliament, and the monastic institutions
on the southern bank of the Seine, had well raised the
cry of heresy, lighted the fires, and collected the mob,
then Herod and Caiaphas were willing to appear and
sanction the persecution with their presence and
authority.
One of the first things done was to frighten the
Bishop of Meaux into silence. In Paris, however, the
Sorbonne had to deal with a man of infinitely more
fortitude than the good Briconnet. Louis de Berquin
is spoken of by Beza as one who might have been the
Luther of France. By birth he belonged to the nobility,
was very pious, and quite remarkable for purity of life.
A learned and honest man, he could not put up with
the ignorance and tenebrous ways of the Sorbonne,
and spoke his mind freely to the king. A controversy
caused him to look into the Bible. He was astonished
^
MARTYRDOM OF LOUIS DE BERQUIN. 17
to find not a word about praying to the Virgin Mary,
and other fundamental doctrines of the Roman Church,
but much that he had never heard taught. Con-
viction with Berquin was soon translated into act,
and the Sorbonne denounced him to the Parliament.
Francis stepped in, and Berquin went on his way. A
second time the Sorbonne cited him, and now before
the bishop ; but the king removed the cause to his
own tribunal, and only exhorted Berquin to prudence.
A third time he was prosecuted by the same set of
scribes and lawyers, and this time, Francis being at
Madrid, and the queen-mother on their side, they
reckoned on destroying their victim; but the king sent
an order for his release. The Sorbonne was enraged,
and Francis made them still more furious by order-
ing them to censure certain propositions denounced
by Berquin, or to establish them by texts from the
Bible.
Suddenly an image of the Virgin at one of the cross-
ings in Paris was mutilated. There was a plot, they
cried, an attack on religion, on the prince, on order.
All law was going to be overturned, all titles to be
abolished. Behold the fruits of the doctrines preached
by Berquin ! The cry succeeded, a panic seized the
parliament, the people, and even the king. Berquin
was imprisoned for the fourth time, and condemned
to be hanged and burnt on the Place de Greve. And
thither, on the 21st of November, 1529, he was taken
to execution, guarded by six hundred men — proof of the
sympathy felt for him, or believed by his enemies to
be felt for him. He descended from the tumbril with
a firm step, and accepted death with such serenity
that after the execution the grand penitentiary said
aloud before the people that for a hundred years no
one in France had died a better Christian.
Such scenes, added to the preaching and dissemi-
B
1 8 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
nation of the Scriptures and religious tracts, caused
tlie desire for reform to spread far and wide. In the
autumn of 1534, a violent placard against the mass
was posted about Paris, and one was even fixed on
the king^s own chamber. The cry was soon raised,
' Death ! death to the heretics ! '
Francis had long dallied with the Reformation — it
was to his interest as a king to support it — and his
sister Margaret, its sincere friend, influenced him in
its favour. His great opponent was Charles V., and
the chief political fact of the times was their rivalry for
the leadership of Europe. But Francis I. had not the
moral courage to follow the example of his ally, the
King of England, or he might have placed himself at
the head of a Protestant League in Europe, and have
become in a way a second Charlemagne.
But when the moment for decision came, and on the
21st of October, 1532, he met Henry VIII. at Boulogne
to discuss the appeal of the German Protestants, he
covered his irresolution by playing the gallant to
Anne Boleyn. So now, two years later on, he develops
into what was quite contrary to his disposition, a
cruel persecutor.
A certain bourgeois of Paris, unaffected by any
heretical notions, kept in those days a diary of what
was going on[in Paris, and from this precious document,
long printed as one of the archives of the history of
France, we learn that between the 13th of November,
1534, and the loth of March, 1535, twenty so-called
Lutherans were put to death in Paris. On the 10th
of November seven persons were sentenced to be
taken in a tumbril to be burnt, and on their road to
make an apology before a church, holding a lighted
taper in their hands. This was the usual process
with heretics.
13th Nov. Barthelmy Milon, the son of a shoe-
A PARIS DIARY OF 1534. 19
maker, and a paralytic, was burnt alive in tlie cemetery
of St. Jean.^
14tli Nov. Jean dii Bourg, a ricli draper, wlio had
put up one of the placards, had his hand cut off before
the Fontaine des Innocents, and was then burnt alive
at the Halles. A printer of the Rue St. Jacques was
burnt alive the same day on the Place Maubert.
18th Nov. A mason was burnt alive before the
church St. Catherine du Saint-Anthony.
] 9th Nov. A bookseller hanged and his body burnt
on the Place Maubert.
4th Dec. A young clerk burnt alive before the
Temple.
5th Dec. A young illuminator hanged, and his body
burnt at the end of the Pont St. Michel.
7tli Dec. A young hosier flogged naked at the
cartas tail, and then banished.
Christmas and its attendant feasts now intervening,
the tragedies were suspended — a sort of interlude,
which concluded on the 25bh of January with an
imposing procession of cardinals, archbishops, and
bishops, coped and mitred, carrying all the rehcs in
Paris, followed by the king, bare-headed, a lighted
torch in his hand, and accompanied by all the princes,
knights, legal authorities, and representatives of the
trades of Paris. Innumerable citizens, each holding
a lighted taper, kept the way on both sides, all kneel-
1 Micbelet tells a beautiful story of this poor boy. A spite-
ful little gamin cle Paris, paralysed and malicious, he sat ab
his father's door mocking the passers-by. A servant of God,
thus reproached, turned back, spoke gently to the poor boy,
and gave him a copy o£ the Gospels. Barthelmy read it, was
converted, and became an exemplary youth, labouring for
his living as a teacher of writing and armorial engravmg;
but, being found possessed of a placard against the mass,
■was burnt as above related.
20 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
ing devoutly at the passage of the host. It was the
aiiicnde lionorahlo to the mass, so outraged by that
unfortunate placard. The roofs of the tall, gabled
houses were covered with people, and every window
crowded with heads to watch the gorgeous procession,
its brilliant colours lit up by thousands of flaming-
lights, make its way through the dark, narrow streets.
After mass the king dined with the bishop, Jean de
Bcllay, friend of Rabelais and even of Melanchthon,
and the repast concluded, Francis, seated on a throne,
protested, in presence of the assembled notables, that
he would not pardon the crime of heresy even in one
of his own children ; nay, if one of the members of his
body was infected, he would cut it off with his own
hands.
After this hypocritical parade six Lutherans were
roasted alive, and, to give still more satisfaction to
the savage vengeance of the persecutors, the martyrs
were suspended to a movable gibbet, which rose and
fell, so that they were alternately plunged into and
then drawn out of the flames. This mode of execution
was called the estrapade.
The appetite for blood having been thus whetted,
the numbers destroyed would have been considerable,
had not most of the best-known heretics in Paris fled.
On the 25th of January seventy-three Lutherans were
suuimoned by sound of trumpet to appear, their goods
were confiscated, and their bodies condemned to be
burnt.
Kith Feb. Etienne de la Forge, a wealthy merchant,
much esteemed, was burnt alive at the cemetery of
St. Jean. His wife was condemned two months later,
and her goods confiscated.
19th Feb. A goldsmith and a painter were flogged
naked at the cartas tail, their goods confiscated, and
themselves banished.
CALVIN'S INSTITUTION.
21
26tli Feb. A youug mercer burnt alive at tlie end
of the Pont St. Michel. His wife died of grief seven
weeks after. On the same day a young scholar of
Grenoble was burnt alive.
loth March. A chanter of the chapel royal was
burnt alive at the crossway of Grostournois^ near St.
Germain FAuxerrois.
A great number of these martyrs were^ it will be
seen^ young people. Thus the prince of the Renais-
sance tried to stifle the germs of a new world.
III.
CALviff AND Geneva.
The panic caused by the Anabaptist outbreak at
Munster may perhaps account for the extreme cruelty
described in the last chapter, as the siege was in actual
progress at the time. It was to defend the memories
of the martyrs of the 29th of January, 1535, and of
others who had suffered elsewhere, and to save, if
possible, those menaced with a similar fate, that Calvin
wrote his Institution of tlie Christian Religion. A
timid, feeble-bodied young student, he had fled from
France, in the hope of finding some retreat where he
might lose himself in the studies he loved. Passing
through Geneva with the intention of staying there
only for a night, he met the indefatigable, ubiquitous,
enterprising, courageous Farel, who, taking him by
the hand, adjured him to stop and carry on the work
in that city. Calvin shrank instinctively, but Farel
proceeded to imprecate such a fearful curse on all he
should do if he left them, that he was forced to yield.
Four months, however, elapsed before he would be
made a pastor,' and he said that he was right glad at
heart when, after a year or two, he and Farel were
22 rilK REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
exiled from Geneva, tliinking ifc a release from a career
he wished to avoid. But he had to go back under
pressure of a cordial invitation from the Geneva
authorities, backed by Martin Bucer's threats of a
heavy curse.
If we look at the frontispiece portrait, taken from
one in the print-room in the British Museum, and
which carries with it the marks of authenticity, we
behold a man who is evidently controlled by an over-
powering sense of duty. Nevertheless, under that
sadly painful expression, we see a character peculiarly
iltted for the work to which Calvin was called. In
that large, full forehead, what intelligence ! in that long,
thin nose what penetration ! in those dreamy, thought-
ful eyes what concentred life ! in that severe mouth
what inflexibility ! in that extraordinary beard — a tuft
with two tails, springing out in advance of the great
beak of a nose — what intense individuality ! In some
of his portraits the pose of his head renders this
strange beard still more peculiar. It is thrown for-
ward in a way absolutely defiant, while the eyes look
upward. A born king — might we not rather say a
born tyrant, using that word in its noblest, best
sense ?
Calvin, once settled at Geneva, had no more doubt
about his calling than if he had been Moses himself.
No doubt he lacked the humanity, the glowing imagina-
tion, the prophetic insight of the Hebrew seer; but he
had a similar genius for legislation, a similar power of
organization, the same ability to compel men to accept
his rule of life.
Cities have a calling even as individuals. Geneva
filled as important a part in the Heformation as Calvin.
Its geographical position marked it as a city of the
nations. Upon it converged the roads which con-
nected Central Germany with Southern France. An
CALVIN AT GENEVA. 23
episcopal city during the Middle Ages^ it had just
asserted its liberty against the usurpation of the Duke
of Savoy and the treachery of its own bishop. While
its traditions were thus theocratic, it was ready to be
the scene of new essays in social organization.
Calvin came, saw, and conquered, for his foes, though
numerous, were by no means his match. Out of this
free, laughing, gay Geneva, he sought to make a civitas
Dei, a city set upon a hill, the example, the centre,
the rock of the new and Divine life now surgfing* in the
chaos into which Europe had fallen. Calvin^s unerring
logic, his pure and living style, dominated the greater
part of men of culture, learning, or power of thought
attached to the Reformation. Minds as original as
his own, but of an entirely different mould, naturally
abhorred his mode of thinking and acting. But their
influence was as nothing compared to his. The law
went forth from Geneva, forming not only an eccle-
siastical society in Switzerland, but a far greater one
in France, as well as that of Scotland, and in the end
vastly affecting that of England.
Calvin's mind was essentially a legal one. He was,
first and before all things, a legislator. He was able
to accept certain points as not to be discussed, but
these premisses admitted, he argued from step to step,
fearless of the consequences. He accepted the general
position of all the Reformers, who, regarding the Bible
as the palladium against the encroachments of papal
authority, gave it the position formerly occupied in
their minds by the Church. The Bible, the sole rule
to follow, without mixing with it anything else, or
adding to it or taking from it — this was the starting-
point from which he deduced everything he taught.
In this way Calvin found the germs of his new
ecclesiastical polity. The Church must be reformed
according to the New Testament. Many references
24 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
were there made to the customs of the primitive
Church. He found mention made of four offices :
pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. The pastors he
formed into a college which controlled all the spiritual
affairs of the Chnrcli, selecting and appointing the
candidates for the ministry^ and nominating them to
various charges with the sanction of the people. To
this first ecclesiastical court he added a second for
discipline. This was formed chiefly of elders and
deacons, but the clerical element being permanent,
while the lay fluctuated, the ministers easily preserved
the leading influence ; and it was of this court Calvin
himself gradually assumed the presidency, and by means
of which he carried on his work. He enunciated
with great force the doctrine so closely connected with
his name : the doctrine of election and of reprobation,
of the existence of a line of chosen saints and a line
of lost sinners. But in the ecclesiastical society ho
founded he attempted no such division ; every
Genevese was a member, and so amenable to the
Church courts. Thus the functions of the consistoi-ial
court of discipline easily covered everything connected
with the life of the people. The minutest point in
dress, the greatest affairs in the State, could be brought
within its jurisdiction. It may, as an instrument of
despotism, be placed in the same category as the Star
Chamber and the Inquisition. But how different the
results ! Geneva, during the last three centuries, has
produced more men of eminence in science and
literature than any other town of equal size, some of
its families having become almost scientific dynasties.
Education, luminous and progressive, has ever been
characteristic of the city of Calvin. Whence the
difference ? It all lies in the motive. Calvin's institu-
tions had no other object than to secure to man the
advance in light and liberty made by the Keformation ;
INFLUENCE OF GENEVA. 25
tlie Star Chamber and the Inquisitiou were instituted
to crush every aspiration in that direction.
From Geneva went forth the influence which
sustained the cause of the Eeformation in its deadly
strife of three centuries. The pastors of the Desert,
the Camisards, the suSerers from the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes, looked to it as the Puritans of
England, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the Protes-
tants of the Netherlands had done, as a sacred city
where dwelt the ark of God and the shechinah ;
Geneva was even more the Protestant Jerusalem than
the Protestant Rome.
IV.
Light and Joy Flood France.
Geneva under Calvin — words fail to describe its
value to the cause of the Reformation. Thirty presses
worked day and night to print a multitude of books
which ardent colporteurs carried over France, chief
among* them being" a small edition of the Bible ^ and a
book of French psalms set to music. ^ Many of these
indefatigable missionaries gave their lives in the cause.
Pierre Chabot, discovered by a spy of the Sorbonne in
1546, suffered martyrdom in the Place Maubert. He
argued modestly with his judges, he harangued the
people from the executioner^s cart ; he would not cease
until they tightened the cord and finally stopped his
1 The firsb translation of the Scriptures was made in 149-i
and published in 1498. Others followed.
- In the British Museum, under the head 'Liturgies, French
Eeformed Church,' may be found one of these books published
in 1566, a pocket edition, about the length of a thumb, beauti-
fully printed, and containing not only the Psalms with the
music to each, but the form of prayers and the catechism, bap-
tismal and other services.
26 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
voice. tliis terrible Word ! if it were thus allowed
to turn tlio scaffold into a pulpifc, all would be lost;
henceforth, in every case, convicted heretics were to
have their tongues cut out.
Nevertheless, and perhaps in consequence of such
barbarities, the Reformers rapidly increased, so that it
is reckoned that by the middle of the sixteenth century
one-sixth of the population of France had embraced
their doctrine. How the seed germinated may be
gathered from a work left us by Bernard Palissy, called
L'histoire des troubles de Xaintonge. The first stir-
rings of the public conscience in the province of
Saintonge were caused by some monks who had either
been in Germany or had in some way had their eyes
opened to the great scandal of the time — the concen-
tration of ecclesiastical property in the hands of a few,
and those frequently not clergymen at all. When the
priests and holders of benefices understood that these
bold monks wished to interfere with their property,
they incited the magistrates to come down upon them,
which the magistrates did with exceeding good-will,
beinof themselves in several cases holders of some
morsel of benefice. The monks, having no desire to
die at the stake, hid themselves in the isles of Oleron,
Marepues, and Allevert, where they became school-
masters or learnt some trade. At first, and with many
precautions, they spoke only in secret to the people ;
but finding how many were with them, by the tacit
permission of a grand-vicar, they began to preach, and
so little by little the people in Saintonge had their
eyes opened, and became alive to abuses which they
would otherwise have ignored.
As the bishop, an august personage twenty-three
years of age, a cardinal and a prince of ^ the precious
blood of Monseigneur St. Louis,' resided at court,
these things might have gone on without hindrance
MARTYRDOM OF PHILIBERT. . 27
had not the fiscal attorney^ a man of perverse and evil
life, sent word to Monseigneur de Bourbon that the
place was full of Lutherans. He received orders to
extirpate them, together with a good sum of money,
'riie preachers were arrested and clothed in green,
that the people might consider them fools. To this
the fiscal attorney added a further piece of malicious
cruelt}^, for he bridled them like horses, filling their
mouths with an apple of iron, and so led them to be
burnt alive at Bordeaux. This was in 1546.
Some time after this, in 1557, an old priest named
Philibert, who had been shut up, probably at this time
for his religious opinions, but who had obtained his
release- by dissembling his convictions, returned to
Saintes after a long stay at Geneva, determined to
repair his fault. He preached the new doctrines, and
advised the Reformed to send for ministers and com-
mence some form of a church ; meanwhile he and his
assistants sold Bibles and other books printed at
Geneva.
Philibert went about with apostolic simplicity.
Though weak and ill, he was often begged to use a
horse, but he would never do so, contenting himself
with the help of a staff; neither did he carry a sword,
but went about without fear, though quite alone.
Having one day prayed with some seven or eight
persons, he left for the isles, where he gathered the
people by sound of the bell, preached to them and
baptized a child, which last act so alarmed the magis-
trates, to whom the spiritual effects of a Divine message
appeared nothing in comparison with the magic of a
rite, that they set off in pursuit of this humble mission-
ary with quite a caravan of horses, men-at-arms, cooks,
and sutlers. Having with great ceremony rebaptized
the child and arrested Philibert, they sent him for
trial to Bordeaux, because they feared their own
28 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
townsmeu, wlio lield liim in reverence as a lioly man.
He died on tlic gallows, the 18tli of April, 1557.
The writer to whom we owe this history was a
devoted disciple of the martyr, and after his death set
himself in his own simple way to carry on his work.
^ There was/ he says, ^ in Xaintes, an artisan poor and
indigent beyond description, who had so great a desire
for the progress of the Gospel that he explained it
one day to another artisan, poor and unlearned as
himself, for both of them knew but little. However,
the first said to the other that if he were willing to
employ himself in exhorting it would be the cause of
great good.'' Although, he to whom he spoke was
without knowledge, it gave him courage, and he
assembled one Sunday morning some nine or ten
persons, and read to them certain passages of the Old
and New Testament which he had written out. He
explained what he read, saying that each according to
the gifts that he had received from God ought to
distribute to others. He read them the words in
Deuteronomy xi. 19, urging them to preach on all occa-
sions, in travelling, in taking their meals, in rising
up or lying down, in sitting by the wayside, never,
in fact, to lose an opportunity. They then agreed to
take it in turns to exhort six weeks at a time.
Such is the artless story of the foundation of the first
Reformed Church in Saintes, and thus doubtless sprang
up spontaneously in vai-ious parts of France many
others, the direct action of the Spirit of God upon the
heart of the people.
And elsewhere, as in Saintonge, it was some con-
verted priest or monk who first preached to the people
the doctrines of the Reformation. But what stirred
up inquiry everywhere was the dissemination of the
writings of Luther, and tlie tracts published by the
Swiss Reformers, which were disseminated far and wide.
29
CIRCULATION OF GOSPEL LITERATURE. 31
The former were brouglifc to the fairs at Lyons and
carried down the Ehone^ were scattered all over the
South of France, while the latter came packed in tuns
as merchandise, and were carried everywhere by the
colporteurs. However the work began, the people
took it up; and, as in primitive times, it was the
poor in this world, rich in faith, who became its
preachers. Such was Pierre de la Vau, a native of
Pontillac, near Toulouse, who was seized in the act of
preaching, standing on a boundary stone in the Place de
la Couronne at Nimes, and condemned to death, the 8th
of October, 1554. ^He was,' says Crespin, 'a shoe-
maker by trade ; but, for all that, fervent in the Word
of God and well instructed in it.' And, as if to unite
this class and the last, we are told that the Dominican
prior who attended him at his execution, partaking
the religious convictions of the victim, spoke to him
only of Jesus, and the necessity of believing in Him to
have eternal life. His words were heard and reported,
whereupon a writ of arrest was issued against him, but
he escaped to Geneva. The spirit of Savonarola thus
dwelt in some of his brethren.
In the environs of Dieppe, in the weavers' villages,
and in those of the cloth-merchants in the district of
Caux, it was a Deborah or a Naomi who, venerated on
account of her sorrows and experience, commenced
the movement by reading and explaining the Bible to
a few persons. The new doctrines won their way,
house by house, family by family, without any teach-
ing but that of the very poor, who thus themselves
came back again to the simple doctrines and practices
of the New Testament.
The particular results of the influence of this little
Church at Saintes indicate what was going on all over
the country. In a few years, gambling, dancing,
ballad-singing, revelling, fashionable dressing had
32 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
nearly all disappeared. No more mnrders_, hardly any
abusive words. Law-suits had diminished. As Easter-
time approached^ people made up their quarrels. The
townsfolk no longer went to gamble and drink at the
inns, but spent their time with their families. Even
children seemed to be strangely thoughtful.
Nothing, in fact, so occupied the minds of the people
as religious worship. ' You see/ said the Catholics to
the priests and monks, ' how the ministers make prayers,
and lead a holy life. Why do you not do the same?^
Then the priests and monks began to make prayers
and preach like the ministers. ' Thus in these days/
says Palissy, ^ there were prayers from one end of the
city to the other. The same edifice was used for both
forms of worship ; the Catholics who came to hear mass
met the Reformed returning from the exhortation.'
This great spiritual movement filled the hearts of
the people with such joy that they burst out into
song. You might have seen, on Sundays, companions
of the same craft walking about the fields and woods,
singing psalms, hjmms, and spiritual songs ; while the
young women, seated in the gardens, delighted them-
selves in siugiug together all kinds of holy pieces.
For this burst of holy joy, Marot and Beza para-
phrased the psalms, and Goudimel set them to new
music, boldly turning them into chants, part-songs,
quartettes.
But the companions of a craft did not wait for the
composers any more than they did for the ministers.
It was enough in those days to meet to sing. They
felt as the children of Israel after they had escaped
from the hands of Pharaoh. They sang in the spirit
of Zacharias, when the Holy Ghost opened his mouth
and he prophesied. These poor artisans and rustic
maidens prophesied, and we to-day witness the fulfil-
ment.
THE FIVE SCHOLARS OF LAUSANNE. 33
But what long years of sorrow and affliction followed
this spring-time of joy ! yet through it all they never
forgot the sweet savour of that early psalmody.
' Music/ said Luther^ ^ is the best consolation of the
afflicted. It refreshes the heart and restores its peace.'
So it was with the early martyrs, who constantly went
to the stake singing. Yes, such was the joy of heart
in those days_, that a chronicler describes the young
virgins as going more gaily to execution than they
would have done to their nuptials. Such was the
enthusiastic strength the new life gave them, that we
read of a peasant who met some prisoners on the way
to execution, and asked the reason of their sentence.
He was told they were heretics ; and he at once claimed
a place by their side, got into the cart, and went to die
with his brethren.
V.
The Five Scholars of Lausanne.
To overflow with joy in affliction, to make the prison,
and the scaffold jubilant with sougs of praise — what
better proof can we have that the kingdom of God had
come nigh, that at this moment France was entering
into a new life ? The martyrs of the primitive Church
could not have triumphed over death with more exult-
ing faith than some of these early confessors for the
cause of Reform in France. Nothing is more beautiful
in martyrology than the story of the five scholars of
Lausanne, burnt at Lyons on the 16th of May, 1553.
Martial Alba, Pierre Naviheres, Bernard Seguin,
Charles Favre, Pierre Escrivain, — these were the names
of the young brothers so blessed and honoured in
their exodus from this world of sin and suffering.
c
34 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
They had returned, towards the end of April, 1552,
into France, in order to begin their work as ministers
of the GospeL Betrayed and denounced ahiiost as
soon as they entered France, they were arrested at
Lyons and thrown into prison. Here they lay for
more than a year, notwithstandiDg the untiring efforts
of sympathetic friends. In these dungeons — and what
dungeons only those who have descended into such
places as the oubliettes still to be seen under the pon-
tifical palace at Avignon can form any idea — in these
dungeons joy lit up their hearts, to think that the
world counted them accursed, while God had chosen
them to maintain the cause of Jesus Christ.
But nothing we can say will equal the touching
story of their last hours as told by the chronicler.
' These then are the arms with which these holy
persons were provided to maintain their last combat,
which took place the sixteenth of the month of May
(1553), a whole year having rolled away since they
were imprisoned. The sixteenth, say I, brought them
deliverance, and was the blessed day for which the
crown of immortality was prepared for them by the
Lord after so virtuous a fight. About nine o^clock in
the morning of the said day, after having received
sentence of death in the court of Rouane — the which,
in short, was to be led to the place of the Terreaux,
and there burned alive until their whole bodies were
consumed, — all five were put in the place where crimi-
nals waited, after having received sentence, until the
appointed time, between one and two o'clock in the
afternoon. These five martyrs betook themselves
first to praying to God with great ardour and vehe-
mence of spirit, marvellous to those who beheld them ;
some prostrating themselves on the ground, others
looking upward ; and then they commenced to rejoice
in the Lord and to sing psalms. And as two o'clock
MARTYRDOM OF THE FIVE. 35
drew nigb, tliey were led out of the said place clothed
in their grey dresses and tied with corcls^ exhorting
one another to maintain constancy, since the end of
their course was at the stake close at hand_, and that
the victory there was quite certain.
''Being then placed on a cart, they commenced to
sing the 9th Psalm : ^^ I will give thanks unto the Lord
with my whole heart," etc. However, they had not
time to finish it, so much were they taken up with
invoking God, and uttering several passages of Scrip-
ture as they passed along. Among others, as they
passed by the Place of the Herberie, at the end of the
bridge of the Saone, one of them, turning to the vast
crowd, said in a loud voice, " The God of peace, who
brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of
the sheep, our Lord, according to Christ by the blood
of the eternal covenant, confirm you in every good
work to do His will." ^ Then commencing the
Apostles' Creed, dividing it by articles, one after the
other, they repeated it with a holy harmony, in order
to show that they had together one accordant faith in
all and through all. He whose turn it was to pro-
nounce the words, ^'^ Who was conceived of the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," raised his voice, in
order that the people might know that it was a false
calumny which their enemies had spread that they
had denied this article, and spoken ill of the Virgin
Mary. To the sergeants and satellites who often
troubled them, menacing them if they did not hold
their peace, they twice answered, '"' Do not prevent
us in the short time we have to live from praising and
invoking our God."
'^Being come to the place of execution, they mounted
with joyful heart on to the heap of wood which was
^ Literal translation of the chronicle.
36 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
round about the stake. The two youngest among
them mounted firsts one after the other^ and the exe-
cutioner having stripped them of their clothes, bound
them to the stake. The last who ascended was Martial
Alba, the oldest of the five, who had been a long time
on his knees upon the wood prayiug to the Lord. The
executioner, having bound the others, came to take
him, and having raised him by the armpits, wished to
put him down with the others; but he earnestly asked
the Lieutenant Tignac to grant him a favour. The
lieutenant said to him, " What wilt thou ? ^^ He
said to him, " That I might kiss my brothers before
dying." The lieutenant granted him his request, and
then the said Martial, being led up to the wood, kissed
and was kissed in turn by all the four standing there
tied and bound, saying to each of them, "Adieu,
adieu, my brother ! " Then the other four there
bound kissed each other, turning round their heads
and saying one to the other the same words, " Adieu,
my brother ! "
' This done, after the said Martial had recommended
his said brothers to God before coming down and
being bound, he also kissed the executioner, saying
to him these words, " My friend, do not forget what
I have said to thee.'^ Then, after being tied and
bound to the same stake, all were inclosed with a
chain which went round about the stake. An attempt
was then made to hasten their death by strangling
them, but it failed, upon which the bystanders heard
the five martyrs continually exhorting one another
with the words, " Courage, my brothers, courage ! '^
which were the last words heard in the midst of the
fire, which soon consumed the bodies of the aforesaid
valiant champions and true martyrs of the Lord.'
THE INFLUENCE OF THE PSALTER. 37
VI.
The Martyrs and the Psalter.
In no Church lias the Psalter ever occupied such a
place as it did for three centuries in that of the
Huguenots. In the degree we catch the spirit of the
Psalms, in that degree we enter into the soul of the
Huguenot life and faith. The first Huguenots died with
some words from the Psalter on their lips, nearly
always singing them, as was their wont in worship.
Jean Leclerc, executed at Metz, 1524, in the midst
of frightful tortures, continued to chant these verses of
Psalm cxv : ^ Their idols are silver and gold, the work
of men's hands.' Wolfgang Schurch, burnt at Nancy,
1525, died singing Psalm li. Aymon de la Voye, in
quitting his prison to go to the stake, intoned the
hundred and fourteenth psalm: *When Israel went
out of Egypt. ■* Fifty-seven Protestants of Metz were
put in prison, from whence fourteen were led to execu-
tion ; their brethren sang as they passed Psalm Ixxix.
As they were about to have their tongues cut out, the
cry arose •?■
' Let the sighing of the prisoner come before Thee ;
According to the greatness of Thy power preserve Thou those
that are appointed to death ;
And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom
Their reproach, wherewith they have reproached Thee, O Lord.'
Nicholas, martyred at Hainaut in 1548, answered the
Cordeliers, who overwhelmed him with reproaches on
the scaffold, in the words of the sixth psalm :
' Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity ;
For the Lord liath heard the voice of my weeping.
The Lord hath heard the voice of my supplication;
The Lord will receive my prayer.'
^ Gagging was first tried, but the strings burnt in the flames-,
and the martyrs burst into song.
38 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Mace Moureau^ burnt at Troyes, 1550^ chanted a
psalm in the flames. Many more similar illustrations
might be given, but for a complete account the reader
is referred to Douen^s great work, Clement Marot ct h
Pscviitier Ilvcjuenot. Five 3'OUDg persons condemned
to death at Lyons, for preaching Reform, sang as they
went to the scaffold the ninth Psalm; a tremendous
appeal to the just and righteous God, who forgetteth
not the cry of the poor, but maketh inquisition for
blood, an appeal full of triumphant faith, an appeal
which has been most assuredly answered.
VII.
New Shepherds and a New Fold.
In 1551 appeared the Edict of Chateaubriant, by
which, persons accused of heresy were rendered amen-
able both to the secular and ecclesiastical courts, so
that, absolved at one tribunal, they could be immedi-
ately cited before the other. Intercession was for-
bidden, sentences were executed notwithstanding
appeal, suspected persons had to produce certificates
of orthodoxy. But light is thrown on the motives of
the powerful personages of the day by the provisions
according to which informers were to receive a third
part of the property of the condemned, while the
entire estates of those who fled the country were to
be confiscated to the Crown. Very soon this courtier
or that favourite was denouncing the man whose
property ho or she desired to have. Sometimes they
ruined a whole family, or got possession of an entire
canton. Thus were enlarged, as was again the case
at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the domains
of families then in process of being made ^ noble and
great.'
PROTESTANT ORGANIZATION IN 1561. 39
But tliis edict was not enough for some of the
cormorants. The Cardinal of LoiTaine_, a man whose
orthodoxy could stretch to any pointy was willing to
join Paul IV. and the Sorbonnists^ and to introduce
the Inquisition into France. Happily, the French
lawyers retained their old traditional dislike to clerical
despotism, and the attempt failed.
However, the Protestants had the possibility of the
Inquisition hanging over them, as well as of the machi-
nations of the Jesuits, who by some change in public
opinion might be permitted to enter France. Organi-
zation in the presence of such danger was clearly
necessary, and thus they were almost compelled to
turn their free communion into a well-drilled org-ani-
zation.
The movement commenced in Paris in 1555. M. de
la Ferriere having received some Protestants into his
house, proposed to them to choose a pastor. After
many objections they elected not only a pastor, but
elders and deacons. Their example was followed
elsewhere, each city, town, or commune constituting
a Church in itself. The work progressed so rapidly
that by 15G1 there were 2,150 Churches thus organized
in France. To unite the Churches into one general
body, a national synod was convoked in 1559. Eleven
Churches were represented, and their delegates met in
Paris from the 26th to the 29th of May.
They adopted a Confession of Faith prepared by
Calvin and his disciple, De Ohandiou, comj^osed of
forty articles. All the dogmas generally regarded as
fundamental to the evangelical creed are stated in this
confession with luminous precision. Certain doctrines
seem more than usually accentuated. Such, for ex-
ample, as the entire corruption and condemnation of
human nature, with the decree of sovereign election.
But these doctrines, which have come to be so pecu-
40 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE. '
liarly associated witli Calvin^ occupy a place quite
secondary to that of the supremacy of the Bible as the
all-sufficient rule of f\iith. Articles II., III., IV., and
V. are devoted to the exposition of this doctrine. It
follows the declaration of the existence and character
of God ; the second article affirming that He reveals
Himself in His works, but still more clearly in His
Word contained in the Holy Scriptures ; the third
states the limits of these Scriptures ; the fourth that
they are known to be the Word of God, not so much
by the common accord and consent of the Church, as
by the testimony and inward illumination of the Holy
Spirit; the fifth asserts that the word contained in
the Scriptures, proceeds from God, and receives its
authority from Him alone ; that it is the rule of all
truth, contaiuing all that is necessary ; that it is not
lawful even for angels to add to it ; nothing, however
sacred, can be put in contradiction to it.
This elevation of the Bible to a position exactly
opposed to that in which Catholicism placed the
Church, is most noteworthy. The same opposition
of ideas is observable in other points. As the ordinary
means of grace, preaching the Word almost occupies
in Calvinism the place of the sacraments in the Roman
Catholic Church, and the all-important term, the
Catholic Faith, is superseded by that of the Reformed
Religion, or The Religion, as a Huguenot loved to say.
Many traces may be found in this confession of
antagonism to the Anabaptist views ; in fact, their
supposed errors are referred to with more severity
than those of the Papists. This is not surprising, con-
sidering that the chief feature presenting itself at the
moment was the anarchical tendency of their views.
It had, however, a deplorable effect, since it tended
to lessen with French Calvinists the influence of the
highest standard of Christianity, the Sermon on the
THE 1559 CONFESSION OF FAITH. 41
Mount. Its immediate effect was to accentuate in the
Calvinistic polity the authority of the ruler, so that it
would be difficult to place it higher. ' God/ the thirty-
ninth article says, ^ wishes to be considered the Author
of every form of human government, and has put a
sword into the hand o£ the magistrate to repress, not
only sins against the second table of the command-
ments of God, hut also against the first.^ ' Conse-
quently,' the fortieth says, ' all their laws and statutes
must be obeyed, the yoke of subjection endured with
goodwill, even if they are unbelievers, provided the
supreme empire of God remains intact.' The con-
fession concludes : ^ Thus we detest those who wish to
cast off their superiors, to introduce community and
confusion of goods, and overturn legal order.'
Various articles set forth the discipline to be ob-
served. Wherever a sufficient number of believers
existed a Church ought to be formed, a consistory
elected, a minister called, the sacraments regularly
celebrated, and discipline established. The consistory,
once elected, filled up its own vacancies ; the pastor,
elected for the first time, was on subsequent occasions
to be named by the provincial synod or the conference.
The consent of the people, however, was always to be
regarded as necessary. While they were not to be
asked to vote, nothing was to be done contrary to their
will.
When difficulties arose the matter was to be referred
to the provincial synod or the conference. A conference
was formed by the union of the Churches of a district,
and it was to meet at least twice a year. Each Church
was represented by its pastor. Above the conference
was the provincial synod, composed of an equal num-
ber of ministers and laymen. They were to meet at
least once a year, and all that was beyond the power
of a conference was to be referred to them. Highest
42 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
of all came tlie national synod_, which was to form a
final court of appeal, and was to take cognisance of all
affairs of national importance. It was composed of
two pastors and two elders, delegated by each of the
provincial synods, and its president was always to be
a pastor. It was to be annually convoked^ and its
deliberations were to commence by the reading of the
Confession of Faith and the Order of Discipline.
The constitution which Calvin thus gave the Re-
formed Church of France reveals throughout his
luminous, logical, legislative genius. In the con-
fession the man himself is peculiarly seen in all his
convictions and. in all his antipathies. He does not
even forget to pillory Servetus by name. But whether
we sympathise with its statements or not, we cannot
deny its grandeur, still less its immense influence and
historic importance. Nothings I imagine, except the
Psalter, had greater influence in forming the Huguenot
character.
This constitution, as regarded, the Church, was
founded, on the equality of all believers, pastors, or
layinen_, high or low. Liberty and. authority were
both maintained, and if the latter predominated, over
the former it was a necessity of the times. On the
principle that the religious institutions of a nation
mould its civil ones, we have here the first step in the
education of France in republican forms of govern-
ment.
VIII.
The Calvin istic Constitution at Work.
But as the letter of a new constitution cannot afford
an idea of its practical working, especially at first, and
MAUGET AT NIMES. 43
among a people formed under a totally different system,
a brief account of what happened in the early days of
one of the local Churches thus formed will be helpful.
Nimes is a city which from the earliest times until
the present day has been one of the chief centres of
the Protestant faith in France. The foundations of
the Church had been laid by such preachers as the
shoemaker De la Vau, and the Dominican prior
Deyron, but it only appears to have been organized on
the arrival of a pastor from Geneva, Guillaume Man get,
September, 1559. His first preachings took place iw.
secret at night, as houses used as conventicles were
liable to be rased and demolished ; but after a time
they grew bolder, and in 1560 they openly held
meetings in a private house, assembling there every
day, and on the 13th of April in that year the Church
for the first time united in celebrating the Lord^s
Supper. On the 20fcli of May following, they had
grown so strong that they took possession of the
Church of Saint Etienne-de-Capduel, contiguous to the
Maison-Carree. When the Comte de Joyeuse, who
commanded in Langucdoc, was about to proceed
against those concerned in the seizure, he found a
majority of the chief people in the law-court of Nimes
were sympathetic, so he merely contented himself with
telling the magistrates and consuls to prevent such
enterprises in future. However, there was naturally
great excitement, and the Comte de Yillais entered
the city with a number of soldiers to maintain order,
whereupon the chief Protestants fled.
Following, however, the fluctuation of the general
ebb and flow of the Protestant cause all over France,
they soon returned, and on the 23rd of March, 1561,
the pastor Mauget formed a consistory, composed at
first of the pastor, ten elders or superintendents, and
three deacons. By 1567 there Avero four pastors, nine
44 THE REFORMA TION IN FRANCE,
elders, and five deacons, besides several oflScers specially
appointed to certain duties; the treasurers of the
moneys for the ministers and for the poor, the receiver
of legacies, the clerk of the consistory, the monitor,
who went about giving notices of meetings, etc., and
the precentor.
The consistory commenced by establishing religious
meetings in private houses in each quarter of the city.
There were nine such divisions in 1567, each under
the superintendence of an elder, whose duty it was to
conduct a service of prayer, reading the Scriptures,
and catechising those who were proposing to take
part in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. On
Sunday these local associations met in some spacious
building to hear sermons from the pastors — a church
when they could get it; in the temple which in 1567
they were permitted to build.
The consistory divided its work into five parts :
assistance to the poor, receiving abjurations, passing
censures, receiving back to the peace of tlie Church,
and divers matters. A word on each will throw light
on the degree of organization attained at this early
period :
1. Assistance to the poor consisted of gifts in money,
in bread, in clothing, in remedies for the sick, in
marriage portions to girls without fortune, in premiums
for the apprenticeship of poor children, in liberalities
towards prisoners, captives, foreigners, and converts,
who were no doubt ofcen deprived of any means of
living. The money for these works was obtained from
the voluntary offerings placed every Sunday in the
basins held by deacons at the doors of the temple,
from collections made from house to house, from
letting the seats, and from boxes placed in the trades-
men's shops, into which customers dropped, as the
riglii of the poor, a sum proportioned to the price of
CHURCH DISCIPLINE AT NIMES. 45
their purcliases, finally from legacies made to the
consistory.
2. Abjurations^ at this time numerous and daily,
consisted in a declaration that the proselyte renounced
' the mass and all Papal idolatry/ and wished to
make a public profession of the Evangelic Religion.
The section of the consistory appointed to this work
then inquired into the degree of their belief and morality
of their conduct, and if satisfied, the proselyte was
solemnly received into the Church on Sunday after
Divine service.
0. Censures. The consistory constituted itself a
court of morals. Its monitor was instructed to
summon before it all who had contracted mixed
marriages, or had sent their children to Catholic
schools ; all guilty of scandalous conduct — fornication,
adultery, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, quarrelling,
duelling, taking part in dances, comedies, masquerades,
frequenting public-houses, or gambling, or neglecting
to attend the religious meetings or the Holy Supper.
Each inquiry was carefully conducted, without preci-
pitation, but without delay. Witnesses for and against
were duly examined, the public then had to withdraw,
and the innocence or guilt of the inculpated party was
decided. The censures consisted of suspension from
the communion without being publicly named from
the pulpit, suspension with such public naming, finally
excommunication.
4. Reception into the peace of the Church. This
took place on repentance \ but in grave cases a public
confession was exacted, made kneeling on the ground
behind the communion table.
5. Diversmatters. Visiting families to heal domestic
troubles, visiting the lukewarm, visiting prisons, the
college, the hospital. This department extended
itself in troublous times over the whole civil govern-
46 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
ment of the city, even to the extent of taking measures
for its defence, electing captains for each quarter,
raising taxes for payment of the troops. In a word,
the police, the city guard, the inspection of tlie con-
duct of the inhabitants, all the chief affairs of the city,
and consequently nearly all the powers, both of the
municipal as well as the royal authorities, gradually
became the object of its deliberations, its votes, and its
rules.
The consistory was wholly renewed every year, but
by a marvellous stroke of statesmanship the members
going out continued to form part of the actual govern-
ing body, under the title of the old consistory. In
the election of pastors, the civic authorities, the magis-
trates, and consuls were invited to unite themselves to
the consistory old and new, so that this important
matter was settled by all the notables of the Church
in an extraordinary assembly denominated the As-
semblv of the three bodies. Pastors were of two sorts,
permanent or temporary j of these last were the pro-
fessors in the school of theology.
There were three services on Sunday and one on
Wednesday morning, during which the shops were
closed, no carriages or carts allowed to go about, and
the city gates padlocked. During the remainder of
the week there were public prayers every evening,
and catechising on Thursdays. All these services were
taken by the pastors in turn, and he who commenced
on Sunday was called the pastor of the week. The
salaries of the ministers were raised by a certain rate,
levied by the consuls of the city on each family, and
detailed in a book called la tariff e.
This condition of things at Nimes could only have
existed in its entirety at such times as the Huguenots
held the upper hand in the troubles which now broke
out in France. In the rapid fluctuation of events
REFORM AMONG THE HIGHER CLASSES. 47
they are one montli lords and masters of the city ; and
the next obliged to fly, or at best to hold their meet-
ings in secret. Thus it was with them in the spring
of 1561, but towards Pentecost they got more bold,
and openly celebrated that feast in a garden in the
suburbs of the city. The tables were prepared by an
elder, and two communions were held : one at break
of day, presided over by the Huguenot pastor Mauget ;
the second at eight o'clock in the morniug, at which
Martin, a barbe of the Waldensian Church, officiated.
He was a native of the Val Luserne, in the valleys of
Piedmont, and had become pastor of the Waldensian
Church of Meundol, ruthlessly destroyed by Francis I.,
and he was now in a temporary sense one of the
pastors at Nimes.
IX.
Reform and ^ the Gentlemen op France.'
Among the higher classes the Reformation found many
earnest adherents, a thing in no way surprising,
as the vast majority in all classes suffer sadly when
might, and not right, reigns supreme. Three women,
Margaret of Navarre, her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret,
mother of Henry IV., and Louise de Montmorenci, a
contemporary of Margaret and the mother of the
Colignys, are illustrious examples. The sons of
Louise de Montmorenci seem to have been given to
the cause, in order to show through all time what sort
of men its principles could make. They began life
loaded with the wealth and honours of this world.
Odet Coligny was a cardinal at sixteen ; Gaspard was
colonel -general in the French army and an admiral of
France ; Francois, the younger, was lord of Andelot,
and, like his brothers, had splendid prospects. Short
48 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
of tlie throne^ there was no position at which they
might not reasonably aim. Dandelot was the first
to come under the influence of the Reformation,
Gaspard apparently the last. Of a slower and deeper
nature than his brothers, he followed them first, then
finally led them and the whole Protestant party.
This long process of cautious deliberation followed
by bold, sustained action is characteristic of Coligny.
In civil matters it was long before he took the head
of the party opposed to the Guises. Neither he nor
his brothers appear to have been in any way connected
with the conspiracy of Amboise — a political attempt
to throw off the tyranny of the Guises, in which many
Protestant gentlemen were concerned.
But it was chiefly among the lower noblesse, the
gentlemen of Frauce, that the cause of Reform made
the greatest progress. When Charles IX, came to
the throne, nearly the whole of the French nobility
had deserted Catholicism. The poorer nobles were
in a most uncomfortable position. They were a caste
as distinctly different from the plebeians around them
as the Brahmin is from the Sudra. They could not
enter into trade, and would not live in the cities.
They sometimes enlisted as private soldiers or became
leaders of bands of mercenaries. For others whose
ideas were more healthy, a special trade, that of glass-
making, was reserved, and in the course of this history
we shall more than once find some illustrious servants
of the Lord among these gentilhommes verriers. Under
such circumstances the poorer French nobility were
especial sufferers from the forces which work in society
just in the degree it is most completely under the
iufluence of the laws of nature. They found those
they regarded as their inferiors rising in wealth, while
those above gradually absorbed their ever-diminishing
patrimonies. Dissatisfied with their lot, they welcomed
THE GENTLEMEN OF FRANCE. 49
anything that promised a change in the order of things,
and to them a Reformation in religion could not help
meaning an efforfc towards the Reform of crying social
and political evils. Some were attracted by purely
religious considerations, but the majority, it cannot bo
doubted_, attached themselves to the cause of Reform
from mixed considerations, in which a hope to better
their own condition was an important element.
Their spirit is well illustrated in the book which
Henry the Fourth called TUe Soldiers' Bible, a book
whose real title, Montluc's Commentaries, gives no idea
of the entertainment in store for the reader. The
Sieur de Montluc was one of those poor gentlemen
who by hard fighting and the blindest loyalty passed
through every grade of soldiering until he obtained the
baton of a Marshal of France. At threescore and
fifteen he sat down to write the history of his life,
which covers all the first period of the Reformation in
France ; and if he had been vigorous with his sword^
he was even more so with his pen.
^ All things,' according to Montluc, ' depend on the
gentry, so that if a man could not get their love he
would never perform anything worth speaking of; a
remark which throws a flood of light on the position
they took with reference to the cause which they
espoused, and to the rulers against whom they so often
rebelled. They dominated over the first, and kept
the latter in a perpetual state of alarm.
These gentlemen delighted in a life of strife and
bloodshed; they scorned to live in towns, where they
would have to compete with the burghers for the
municipal offices. However, to judge from the Sieur
de Montluc — and he is without doubt a typical char-
acter — they were sincerely religious. Montluc affirms
that he was never in action without imploring the
Divine assistance, and never passed a day of his life
D
50 THFi REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
since lie arrived at tlie ao-e of man witbout callini^:
npon the name of God and asking pardon for liis sins.
And he assures us that many times in the sight of the
enemy ho was so possessed with fear that he felt his
heart beat and his liuibs tremble ; but no sooner had
ho made his prayer to God than he felt his spirits and
his heart return.
All this shows the soil on which in the upper rauks
of French life the preaching of the Reformers fell;
for Montluc himself was^ and continued to the end_, a
stout Catholic^ fiercely struggling against the Hugue-
nots^ unable^ as he says^ to ^ believe the Holy Ghost
is among a people who rise in rebellion against their
king.' And as his loyalty was only just a little more
thorough and more absolutely unquestioning than that
of other good men around him^ we give his doctrine
on the subject^ that we may better estimate the
struggle it must have cost a man so intensely loyal as
Coligny to take up arms.
'■ Vi, therefore, you would have God to bo assisting
you, you must strip yourself of ambition, avarice,
rancour, and be full of the love and loyalty we all owe
our prince. And in so doing, although his quarrel
should not be just, God will not for all that withdraw
His assistance from you : for it is not for us to ask our
prince if his cause bo good or evil, but only to obey
him.''
It is easy to imagine the horror of such a man when
he heard that the consuls of St. Hazard, being remon-
strated with on account of their rebellious proceedings^
and told that the king would be highly displeased with
them, replied : ^ What king ? We are the kings. As
to him of whom you speak (it was Charles IX., then
a boy), we'll give him a whipping, and set him a trade,
to teach him to get a living as others do.' He tells us
it was not only at St. Hazard that they talked at this
SPREAD OF REFORM.
51
rate, but it was common discourse in every place. So
he took the law into his own hands, and proceeded to
execute summary vengeance against all the rogues
who durst thus wag their wicked tongues against the
majesty of their king and sovereign. Accompanied
by two haugmeu, he struck off heads, hanged on trees,
and flogged to death his unhappy prisoners. And he
thought if every one had been as fast as he to put out
the fire, it would not have consumed all.
Such was the world in the midst of which these
little Reformed Churches came into beinof. At first
you hear plaintive voices risiug in prayer or quavering
forth one of Gretier's touching melodies : the scene
an old kitchen, the time midnight, the light from the
blazing log upon the earth showing a group of earnest,
toilworn men and women who have met to praise God
and tell what He has done for their souls. Then as
the small hours of the night are coming on, the doors
are slowly unbarred, the little company separate with
many words of fraternal love ; each takes his lantern or
trusts to the kindly light of the stars, and they all are
soon dispersed over the city.
But other scenes are soon enacted. Learned men,
doctors in law and logic, or men once eminent in
ecclesiastical rank, are holding assemblies in castellated
mansions in the midst of noble parks, the chatellain
with his sword at his side, his lady with her farthin-
gale and ruff, their relatives and friends, their vassals
and retainers, their servants and their serfs, are all
collected to hear an earnest exhortation in choice and
powerful French, to sing the noble psalms of Marot
and Beza, and to hear read what they emphatically
call the Word of God.
But amongst high and low in the conventicle held
in the seignorial hall, and in the conventicle held in the
burgher^s kitchen, the one subject that touches every
52 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
heart, that awakens the most passionate feeling, is the
account narrated by an eye-witness of the martyrdom
of the Lord^s elect.
As the isolated executions, the murdering of one or
half a dozen enlarges into massacres where a whole
congregation is put to the sword, the spirit of furious
wrath can no longer be restrained. These gentlemen,
accustomed for ages to vindicate the slightest stain
on their honour, the least harm done to one of the
meanest of their serfs, by the summary vengeance of
the sword, will no longer endure to see their dearest,
most venerated friends thus treated. Everything
combines to send their blood up to boiling heat ; their
new faith and their old wrongs, their private designs
and the public misery. Nor can their divines restrain
them, who teach so unhesitatingly the equal impor-
tance of the Old and New Testament. In the former
they find abundant support. They are now the Israel
of God, their enemies are the Gentiles, who are ever
warring against the Lord and His anointed. They
guard their swords, they put their morions on their
liead, and they sally forth to sing the Huguenot
Marseillaise, the grand and majestic paraphrase of the
sixty-eighth Psalm composed by Beza, and set to one of
the most lovely, the most plaintive of melodies, made
by an old composer named Matthew Gretier. Would
you recall the intensely religious spirit in which these
old Huguenot wars were undertaken, play over the
music given in the appendix. Read the Psalm in
English and French, and imagine its power intoned
by a whole army of warriors, accompanied by the
simple music of the day, the drum and the flute. So
great was the enthusiasm its appeals and its prophetic
denunciations excited, that they sang it on their knees,
which, one day observing, the Duke of Joyeuse,
minion to Henry III., and commander of the Catholic
CATHOLIC AND HUGUENOT GENTLEMEN. 53
army, cried. ^ Look, look, tliey kueel ! ^ ^ Yes, my
lord,' said some old warrior, ' wliea the Hugaeuots
kneel, ifc is then they mean to fight/
But our narrative has not arrived at this time.
As yet the difference between the Protestant and
Catholic gentlemen of France is not very apparent.
Nevertheless, it is the difference between law and jus-
tice, of which the honest Catholic and the sincere
Huguenot were each in their rough way respectively
the champions. That there were Huguenots inclined
to defy the law we have seen; that there were
Catholics who considered it a cumbrous and useless
impediment we have also seen. The Guise tyranny
affords a monstrous example, in the way it avenged
the conspiracy of Amboise. The conspirators were
mainly Huguenot gentlemen, whose object was to
deliver themselves and France from this tyranny.
They were unsuccessful, and those who had engaged
in it were executed without even the least form of law.
The square in Amboise was covered with gibbets,
blood ran down the streets; as executioners were not
to be had in sufficient numbers, the prisoners were
tied hands and feet and thrown into the Loire. The
leading men, kept for the delectation of the court, were
executed in its presence : the queen-mother, her sons,
her maids of honour, and the courtiers coming to the
windows to see them executed.
What the sword could not do the pen accomplished.
Frangois Hotman, who had been converted by behold-
ing the constancy of the raartyrs, wrote an awful
pamphlet, published in 1560, in which he stigmatised
the cardinal as the Tiger of France. ' Each line,' says
Henri Martin, ' of the bitter eloquence of the Calvin-
istic Nemesis seems traced with the point of the sword
and the blood of martyrs.'
Agrippa d'Aubigne, passing with his father that
54 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE,
same year tlirongli Amboise^ saw the Leads of tlie
victims still on the gibbets. It was fair-clay, and there
were seven or eight thousand people in the streets,,
nevertheless the old man could not restrain himself
from crying out, ^ The butchers ! they have decapitated
France ! '' As the lad looked up, wondering at his
father^s emotion, the latter said, '^ My child, after
mine, thy head must not be spared to avenge these
leaders full of honour. If thou sparest it, thou shalt
have my curse ! ^
X.
Science and Art among the early Huguenots.
Among the Huguenot psalters I have examined was
one of 1556, a tiny pocket edition, giving not only
the music to each psalm, but all the Huguenot formu-
laries of prayer, the whole printed in the very smallest
type. On the frontispiece is a woodcut — a hand
coming out of a cloud holds a pen crowned with a
laurel wreath — appropriate emblem of a revolution
which owed so much to the pen.
^ One of the advantages of the Eeformation,' says a
Catholic writer, '' was to have for its interpreters the
greater part of the learned men of the day.^ As
early as the reign of Francis I., Guillaume Bude, a
learned man who stimulated that monarch to found
the College Royal, gave strong presumptive evidence
that he was in sympathy with the anti-ritualistic move-
ment, for he left orders in his will that his body
should be buried at night, by the light of a torch or
two, without any public ceremonies; and the proba-
bility is confirmed by the fact that his wife was one
of the ^ evangelicals,^ and three of his sons figure
among the Reformed. In a short space of time
PIERRE DE RAMEE. 55
the leaven liad so spread among the learned that a
majority of the professors in the University of France
were suspected of heresy. Such was the case with
Vatable, professor of Hebrew, who translated the
psalms for Clement Marot, and Mercier, his disciple,
who was even more decidedly Protestant ; with
Toursal, the Hellenist, and Postal, the Orientalist,
with Montaure, a clever mathematician, and others,
not forgetting Tournebe, the most learned of them all.
Of those who served the learned we find the printer
Wechel and the publishers Estienne had leanings
towards Reform ; while among those who patronised
them, the Cardinal of Chatillon and the Bishop of
Valence might be counted as sympathetic. But the
most important adhesion in the way of learning to the
cause of Reform was that of Pierre de Ramee, one of
those powerful intellects which rise in stirring times
from the very bottom to the highest rung on the
social ladder. Pierre de Ramee was the son of a
labouring man, his grandfather having been a char-
coal burner. A little boy, he twice trudged to Paris
to get an education, but was driven back by want of
food. His uncle, a carpenter, took pity on him, and
he became servant to a student, studying at night,
until he began to suflfer from ophthalmia.
But he made his way through all the learned cob-
webs and all the educational briars of his time, not,
however, without becoming bitterly contemptuous of the
mediaeval methods of instruction, and an opponent of
Aristotle. Against that ^ adored ^ philosopher Ramee
maintained a life-long war. In his Master of Arts
Thesis, he undertook to prove that all Aristotle had ever
said was false. He was applauded at the time as an
ingenious dialectician, but when the learned found he
was in earnest, the Aristotelians became furious and
implacable. Even Beza could not forgive him for
56 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
his opposition to Aristotle. He was driven away for
a time from the University, but came back under
the a3gis of the Cardinal of Lorraine. Among the
many benefits which that powerful prelate had con-
ferred on him, he declared the chief was his conversion
to the cause of Eeform, into which when once he clearly
saw his way Ramee threw himself with characteristic
intensity. He designed to reform all the liberal arts :
grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, as well as the pro-
nunciation of Latin. With martyrs all around him,
he could not but foresee the end ; but the spirit in
which he worked may be judged from the following
words uttered in 1563 : ^I am glad to think, if I have
been beaten by so many tempests, if I have passed
over so many rocks, that my misfortunes will, at least,
be useful in rendering the route to you more easy
and more secure.'
Such was the spirit of enlightened Reform. It
looked with peculiar interest on the next generation.
The State in those days, and up to the time of the
Revolution, made no provision for the general education
of the people. This was entirely in the charge of the
Church; it was therefore j^art of a pastor's business
to teach the young, and a catechism was very early
prepared for the purpose. However, the schoolmaster
soon appears, and occupies an honoured position in the
Church. 'The school,' says Michelet, 'is the first word
of the Reformation and the grandest. It writes at the
head of its revolution : Universal instruction, schools
for boys and girls, free schools, where all are seated
together, rich and poor.'
The Catholic writer who notes how the learned
supported the cause of Reform, remarks also that it
had the privilege and monopoly of talent. Jean
Goujon, the earliest and one of the greatest of French
sculptors, Claude Goudimel, the musician, and the
CATHERINE DE AlEDICI. 57
illustrious Bernard Palissy, were all Huguenots. Nor
must we forget Clement Marot^ wlio did for the Reform
one of the very greatest services possible, by putting into
verse the psalms of David. On their first appearance
they were all the vogue, the very courtiers sang them.
If in Marot the Reformation may claim to have struck
one of the earliest and best notes in the French lyre,
in Du Bartas it gave Prance its first poet in the heroic
style. Poetry and Reform are twin brothers. He
who aspires to better the world is already a poet.
XI.
Catherine de Medici.
The death of Francis II., in 15G0, seemed a dawn of
hope. Power passed from the Guises into the hands
of Catherine de Medici. She chose for her minister
Michel niospital, and made him chancellor. He
proved a man of astonishing virtue, thoroughly honest,
loyal to the true interests of the king and the country,
and a friend and protector of the Reformed Churches.
The royal treasury was in debt to no less an amount
than 45,500,000 livres, equal to 140 or 145 millions of
francs, and at the value of money now-a- days probably
equal to 400 millions. In order to meet this great
deficit, he advised the queen-mother to convoke the
States -General. Their meeting brought out in clear
rehef the desire of the country for a thorough reforma-
tion, civil and religious.
The orators of the nobility and of the third estate
attacked the clergy. The first wished that the debts
of the State should be paid at the expense of the
ecclesiastical order, and that the clergy should be
deprived of all civil and feudal jurisdiction. The
orators of the third estate declared that the Church
58 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
could never return to its priuiitive sincerity until the
priests from the highest to the lowest had amended
their three principal vices_, ignorance^ avarice^ and
superfluous pomp.
This was no temporary burst of indignation. For
seventy-seven years prior to the calling of this States-
General_, that is from 1484 to 1561^ the third estate
had again and again demanded a long list of reforms
in the Church.
The day upon which the States- General closed^ the
31st of January, 1561, L^Hospital signed an ordinance
which decreed in the name of the king the greater part
of the reforms desired by the nation. The edict was
registered at Orleans, whence its name, and not, as
usual, in the Parliament of Paris, because the chancellor
knew that its provisions had many violent enemies
among the chats foiirres, as Pabelais called the gentle-
men of the furred robes at the Palais de Justice.
At this auspicious moment, the selfish ambition of
the Bourbon princes, who were regarded as the leaders
of the cause of Reform, nearly spoilt all. The King of
Navarre, the unworthy husband of Jeanne d''Albret,
wanted to be regent. However, he was soon overcome
by one of Catherine's Delilahs, and so reduced to
loyalty.
While Navarre had been recalcitrant, Catherine had
souofht to arouse the Constable Montmorenci asrainst
the Calvinists, by telling him that they were proposing
to inquire into the gifts and largesses obtained from
the late kings, and that they even spoke of compel-
ling restitution. The provincial estates of the Ile-
de-France, who wanted to make the King of Navarre
lieutenant-general of France, and the real head of
the government, demanded an inquest into the public
thefts, and in this demand they were encouraged by
Coligny.
PLOT A GAINS T GENE VA . 59
This intimation led Montmorenci^ who was uncle
to the Coh"gnySj henceforth to range himself on the
side opposed to Eeform. He was seen going to mass
at the same chapel as the Dtike of Guise, and on
Easter Day they took the communion together. The
pair now joined themselves to Saint- Andre, and
the Triumvirate, as they were called, determined on
a plan for exterminating the Calvinists. The chief
action was to centre in France, where every sectarian
w^as to perish, but its head and natural director
was to be Philip of Spain, under whom a grand
alliance of Catholic Europe was to be formed. The
German Catholics were to prevent the German Luther-
ans from going to help the French Huguenots; the
Swiss Catholics were to rise against the Swiss Protes-
tants ; and the Duke of Savoy was to fall on the
centre of heresy, the accursed city of Geneva, and
destroy all its people without distinction of age or sex.
For funds they looked to the pope, to the revenues of
the Church, and confiscation of the property of the
heretics.
While this dark project was fermenting in the minds
of the three conspirators, la imuvre commune, as the
Catholic mob of Paris was tenderly called by the
Parliament, became perceptibly agitated. Led by the
black-robed bands of the University, they attacked an
hotel where the Calvinists were in the habit of meet-
ing, broke the windows, forced the door, and killed
the porter. A general massacre would have ensued,
had not the mob caught sight of more drawn swords
than they bargained for. L'Hospital tried to stop
these outrages by threatening to hang everybody
who used the injurious words. Papists, Huguenots, or
who attacked houses under pretext of breaking up
illicit assemblies. The same edict also renewed the
order to set all persons free arrested on account of
6o THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
religion, while those who had fled the kingdom were
invited to return.
The Parliament of Paris refused to allow this edict
to be published in the capital. The chancellor replied
by a request to the bishops to render a full account
of the ecclesiastical property in each diocese, upon
which the clergy, who in the States- General had
protested against every design tending to attack their
possessions, now turned for protection to the house of
Guise.
The Cardinal of Lorraine had learnt the art of
managing women as a courtier of Diana of Poitiers ; he
now showed what he could do even with an enemy,
succeeding to such a degree with the queen-mother,
that L^Hospital had to consent to a united sitting of
the Council and the Parliament, with a view to deter-
mining the nature of the legislation with regard to the
Reformed. After a debate of three weeks, the friends
of justice were defeated by a majority of three, and
it was resolved that whosoever took part in heretical
conventicles should incur pain of death, simple heresy
to be punished with banishment. While Guise de-
clared that he would sustain this edict with his sword,
and Coligny that it could never be executed, the
chancellor set himself to soften all its provisions, and
to render it difficult to work, by introducing as many
leofal checks as he could devise.
^O"
XII.
The Confeeence at Poissy.
This apparent defeat in the direction of Heformation
and the pacification of the country did not deter
Catherine and her chancellor from proceeding to carry
out the scheme proposed by Dubourg in the Parlia-
THE CONFERENCE AT POISSY. 6i
inenfc of Paris : a national synod for agreement on
religious reform. However^ they did not dare to call
it more than a colloquy, or conference. The feelino-
throughout the country was so strongly in favour of
Eeform, that, notwithstanding their late victory, the
Guises had to submit. The cardinal hoped, by inviting
a number of doctors of the Augsburg Confession, to
create a dispute on the doctrine of the Real Presence,
and thus make vividly manifest the sectarian spirit of
the Reformation.
On the other hand, L^Hospital and the queen-
mother were bent on obtainino' some arranofement
with the Huguenots, which they could force on the
pope and the Council of Trent, which, though twice
interrupted, was on the eve of being opened for the
third time.
The least that Catherine expected the dissidents to
demand is shown in the letter which she wrote to pre-
pare the mind of the pope for the negotiation. Re-
moval of images from the altars and the sanctuary,
simplification of the rites of baptism, the communion
in both kinds, abolition of private masses, suppression
of the j'ete of the Holy Sacrament, and the chanting
of the psalms in the vulgar tongue; such were the
reforms Catholic monarchs could propose and popes
consider in the sixteenth century.
The conference opened at Poissy, the 9fch of Sep-
tember, 1561. Theodore de Beza, Peter Martyr, and
eleven other Calvinist divines, together with twenty-
two lay deputies, representing the Protestant Re-
formers.
Born in 1519, Beza was just in the flower of his
fame. The chosen disciple of Calvin, he had lately
succeeded to his master's position in Geneva, the great
Reformer's departure being at hand. He came there-
fore to Poissy with all the authority of the recognised
62 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Lead of tlie Calvinistic religion. Aud^ certainly, the
colloquy at Poissy did not fail from want of tact on
the part of Beza, for he had all the qualities of the
best order of diplomatists. Intelligent^ firm, even
severe, his handsome visage, agreeable manners, and
ready eloquence, softened off the hard points of Cal-
vinism. Sincere, and witliout the least suspicion of
originality, he won the confidence of friends and foes.
The Protestants asked for such arrangements as
would have made the conference a reality : that it
should be presided over by the king and the great
officers of state, that they should debate on equal
terms with the bishops, and not as criminals before
judges, that all difi'erences should be decided by the
Word of God alone, that secretaries should be ap-
pointed on both sides in equal numbers to draw up
the account, which should be agreed to mutually.
Bnt Catherine begged them to be content with her
royal word, and as far as she was able she was true
to all that she had promised, for no one, except
L' Hospital, was more desirous for the success of the
conference.
She brought the young king, then only eleven years
of age, to the conference, and he opened the proceed-
ings by a speech, in which he exhorted those who took
part in the proceedings to lay aside all passion, and to
discuss simply for the honour of Grod, the discharge of
their conscience, and the re-establishment of the peace
of the realm.
Then the chancellor spoke, urging- that there was no
need for consulting books, the point was to under-
stand the Word of Grod and conform to that. Instead
of regarding the Reformed as enemies, they should
remember that they were as much baptized Christians
as themselves, and receive them as fathers did their
children. Tbe Cardinal of Tournon asked for a copy of
THE CONFERENCE AT POISSy. 63
the chancellor's speech, that he might consider it with
his brethren; it contained, he said, important points
not mentioned in the letters of convocation.
The bishops also took care to declare that they did
not understand that they were holding a national
council, but had only met to reform abuses under the
good pleasure of the pope.
Theodore do Beza and his little company were then
introduced by the Duke of Guise. They tried to pass
beyond the bar which separated them from the pre-
lates, but were refused, and kept standing throughout
the debate like so many criminals on their trial. But
Beza, as if to compel that recognition of equality be-
fore God which was denied them before men, knelt
down with all the pastors, and making a solemn con-
fession of the sins of the people of France, implored
a blessing on the assembly. He was listened to with
mingled astonishment and emotion.^
As the colloquy had been arranged to go wrong on
the question of the Real Presence, it proceeded like
a machine that had been tampered with. As long as
Beza spoke of other questions he was patiently listened
to, but when he stated his doctrine of the Lord's
Supper a murmur ran along the episcopal benches,
and cries of hiaspliemavit v/ere raised. In an after-
meeting held by the bishops the Cardinal of Lorraine
professed himself shocked. ^ Would to God,^ he said,
' that either Beza had not spoken, or that wo had been
deaf ! ' It was determined that one of the most learned
doctors, probably some Sorbonne professor — for this
body were particularly infuriated against the Protes-
1 The Confession of Faith adopted by the Eeformed Church
of France (see p. 30) was presented to Charles IX. at Poissy,
by Beza. Schaff' s Creeds of the Evangelical rrofestant Church,
vol. ii. p. 357.
64 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
tauts — should draw np an answer wlncli the Cardinal
of Lorraine would pronounce.
The speech was delivered a week afterwards, and
Beza wished to reply on the spot, but the bishops
refused to allow him. The Cardinal de Tournon prayed
the king to drive out of the kingdom every one who
would not sign what the Cardinal of Lorraine had said.
^ The assembly of prelates/ he urged, ^ begs this very
humbly, in order that in this very Christian kingdom
there may be but one faith, one law, and one king.^
The Cardinal of Lorraine knew, however, that all
the success of the colloquy lay with the Protestants,
and that unless some stigma could be attached to their
representatives, the friends of the Religion would be
greatly emboldened. He could not produce his Augs-
burg divines, for one of them had fallen ill of the
plague on the road ; but suddenly taking a paper from
his breast he read three or four of the principal articles
of the Lutheran confession, and asked if the Calvinist
ministers would sign them. Beza parried this palpable
trap by remarking that they would first of all like to
know if the cardinal and his fellow prelates, repudiating
the doctrine of transubstantiation, were prepared to
set them the example. Lorraine, nettled at Beza's
audacity, cried, ' We are not equal ; I am called upon
to subscribe to no confession, neither to this nor to
yours.' ' Then,' replied Beza, with a nalvcto that was
absolutely unanswerable, ' if you do not wish to sub-
scribe to it yourself, it is not just to ask us to do so.'
However, L'Hospital and the queen-mother, not-
withstanding so many apparent difficulties, persevered.
They knew the heart and the intellect of France were
with them. So now they would not let Beza go until
an effort had been made to produce a common formu-
lary which all moderate men could adopt. A com-
mittee was accordingly appointed^ including on the one
SHIPWRECK OF THE CONFERENCE. 65
side Beza^ Peter Martyr^ aud three Protestant pastors,
and on the other the Bishops of Yalence and Seez, and
three Catholic doctors. In the common confession of
faith these ten theologians prepared it was declared
that :
'^ Jesus Christy in His Holy Supper, truly presents
and exhibits to us the substance of His body and of
His blood by the operation of His Holy Spirit, and
that we receive, and eat sacramentally, spiritually, and
by faith this same body which is dead for us/
The queen and L^Hospital appeared to have been
full of hope from this agreement of the rival theolo-
gians, aud Beza is said to have been under the impres-
sion that the Cardinal of Lorraine fully approved this
confession. But when it was read before the assembly
at Poissy on the 4tli of October, the majority of prelates
and doctors declared it insufficient, captious, and full
of heresy. They prepared another, in which they
declared that the body of Jesus Christ was received in
the Eucharist really and substantially, and they prayed
the king to compel Beza and his adherents to subscribe
to this or quit the kingdom.
Thus the colloquy of Poissy was shipwrecked ; and
the best and only opportunity that the Gallican Church
had to make terms with its most earnest, most believ-
iug people passed away. However, the effort was not
without its fruits. There was a great increase among
the adherents to Protestantism, one of whom was, as
has been said, the celebrated philosopher, Pierre de
Eamee, or Eamus.
His decision w^as brought about, not by the argu-
ments of Beza, but by the reply of the Cardinal of
Lorraine, in which that wily speaker, while gracefully
acknowledging the abuses of the Church and the vices
of the clergy, and confessing the extreme superiority
of the primitive Church over the Roman Church, con-
E
66 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
eluded, however, tliat after all a man ouglit to remain
attached to the latter. The clear and logical mind of
Hamus would not allow him to be satisfied with a
conclusion so directly opposed to the scope of the
argument, and he wrote to his benefactor to say that
since he had shown him that of all the fifteen centuries
since Christ, the first was the golden age, while all
that followed had grown more and more vicious and
corrupt, he had determined to attach himself to the
age of gold, and reject all the rest.
On the 17th of January, 1562, an edict was published
giving the Protestants the free exercise of their re-
ligion. At the College of Prasles, over which Ramus
presided, and where he had no doubt commented on
the scandalous way in which part of the second com-
mandment was suppressed, the students made an icono-
clastic raid on the chapel, and broke all the statues of
the saints.
If violence and iconoclasm broke out in Paris under
the influence of this breakdown of the attempt to bring
about a moderate reform in Church and State, how
much more was it to be expected in the fiery and
tempestuous south ! The Protestants in Nimes having
been refused the use of the cathedral by the Estates
of Languedoc, unexpectedly got possession of it late
in 1561. They were coming out of the neighbouring
Church of St. Eugenie, which had been granted, when
they saw a hubbub at the door of the cathedral. Some
ill-behaved children had been driven out by the beadle.
Two noblemen coming up went into the cathedral,
and the Huguenots immediately followed. Terrified
at the sight of them, the bishop and his clergy fled,
whereupon the intruders broke the images and demo-
lished the altar. Emboldened by this, they ran in
ever-increasing crowds into several other churches^
destroying some of the sacred vessels. Two days after^
DISTURBANCES A T NIMES. 67
their great preacher^ Viret^ preached in the cathedral,
it being Christmas, and received there the public
abjuration of the Prior of Millau, in Rouergne, of the
Abbess of TarasQon, and several nuns of the abbey of
St. Sauveur. On the first Sunday in the new year,
1562, two communion services were held in the
cathedral, and three ministers were ordained by the
imposition of hands. At the communion, nearly 8,000
communicants sat down, having at the head the mem-
bers of the consistory, the magistrates and the consuls,
in their red robes and hoods.
However, the cathedral did not remain long in their
hands, for the edict of January, 1562, granting the
free exercise of their religion to the Protestants, re-
quired the return of all the churches they had taken
from the Catholics ; besides, their own provincial
synod decided this ought to be done, and in fact all
ecclesiastical property of which they had become pos-
sessed. It opposed image-breaking, burning crosses,
or any other scandalous act, all gatherings in the
streets, and the wearing arms in religious assemblies.
XIII.
Terrible Position of the Huguenots.
The friends of corruption and superstition felt strength-
ened by the failure of the colloquy. It was a great
blow to the reconciliatory policy of Catherine and her
minister, and the Guises began to prepare for the
extermination of their foes. The first thing they
sought to do was to prevent the German Lutherans
from helping the French Calvinists. Four of the
Guises went to Alsace to win over Duke Christopher
of Wiirtemberg, a German prince, very influential and
much respected. ^Mass,' the Cardinal of Lorraine
68 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
told him, ' was no longer celebrated in three of his
bishoprics unless there were communicants, and he
was going to abolish it altogether/ At Duke Chris-
topher's explanations of his own creed^ the Duke of
Guise cried out, ^ Oh, if that's it, I'm a Lutheran ! '
After this attempt to hoodwink the Germans, this
same duke, with one of his brothers,, went to a little
town in the domains of the family, called Vassy, and
there, on Sunday^ the 1st of March, 1562, slaughtered
sixty Calvinists, and this, notwithstanding the Edict of
Toleration issued by the Royal Council on the 17th of
January of the same year.
At the news of this truculent deed the Calvinists
throughout France were agitated and indignant. Beza,
supported by the Prince de Conde, at once demanded
justice of the queen-mother, the latter offering to
support her with an army of 50,000 Protestants.
Catherine begged Guise to put off his return to Paris.
He came nevertheless, entering the city at the head
of 2,000 horsemen, and was received at the Porte St.
Denis to the cry of Ywe Guise ! all the Protestants
quitting the city.
The queen-mother tried to keep on good terms with
both parties ; Conde she authorized to take up arms,
recommending herself and her sons to his protection,
while she told the Parisians she would bring the king
to Paris and the citizens should be armed. However,
she did not keep her word, but went to Fontainebleau,
leaving the King of Navarre, who had ceased to be
Huguenot^ to represent royalty in Paris.
Here was a position for the Calvinists. A great
conspiracy for their extermination, the royal power
dominated by the leaders of the conspiracy. Were
they to allow themselves to be slaughtered^ all law
and justice to be trodden under foot, and the Religion
suppressed ? Michelet blaDies the Huguenot leaders
COLIGNY JOINS CONDE. 69
for allowing so many years to pass in silent endurance
of atrocious injustice ; and he seems to think that the
final shipwreck of their cause was due to their long
incertitude on the capital question^ Ought we to be
obedient to the powers that be^ just or unjust ?
This was the real question which Coliguy was called
upon to answer at this terrible crisis. He was in an
agony of doubt. His friends gathered round him at
Chatillon^ urging him to mount his horse and join
Conde. For two days the discussion went on, and
still he refused. But at night, after he had retired to
rest and had fallen asleep, he was awoke by the deep
sighs of his wife. ^ Here/ she said, * we lie, lapped
in luxury, while the bodies of our brothers, members
of Christ, bones of our bones, flesh of our flesh, lie in
dungeons or in the open fields, at the mercy of the
dogs and the birds of prey. When I think of the
prudent language with which you have closed the
mouths of your brothers, I tremble lest to be so wise
for men should prove to be unwise for God. Can you
refuse to use the military genius He has given you
in the service of His children? The knight's sword
which you carry, is it to oppress the afflicted, or to
cut the talons of tyrants ? You have confessed the
justice of taking up arms, can you give up the love
of right because you doubt its success ? God takes
away sense from those who resist Him under pretext
of sparing blood ; He knows how to save the soul which
wills to lose itself, and to cause that soul to be lost
that seeks to take care of itself. Monsieur, the spilt
blood of our brethren and your wife cry out to God
that you will be the murderer of those you do not
prevent being murdered ! '
To this impassioned appeal Coligny listened patiently.
Then sadly going over all his arguments of the pre-
vious evening — ^the folly of popular risings, the doubt-
70 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
fulness of entering an unformed party, tlie diflSculty
of struggling against those wlio had possession of
an ancient State, in maintaining which so many were
interested, of commencing a civil war in the midst of
external peace — he said to her : ' When you have
reflected over these arguments, lay your hand on your
breast and see if you have constancy to endure the
reproaches most people make when they judge a cause
by its failure, the treasons of our own people, flight,
exile, shame, nakedness, hunger, and, what will be
more diflacult to bear, that of your children. Then
think of your death by the executioner, after having
seen your husband dragged througli the streets and
exposed to the contempt of the vulgar, and for a
conclusion, your children the degraded valets of your
enemies, strengthened and triumphant through your
efibrts. I give you three weeks to consider, and if,
after then, you are willing to accept all these chances,
I will go to perish with you and your friends.'
' The three weeks are past,' she replied. ' I sum-
mon you in the name of God to defraud us no longer ! '
Coligny said no more, but next morning mounted
his horse and rode ofl" to join Conde. The Rubicon
was passed, and the first civil war began (1562).
Coligny's interior struggle is a clue to that which
the whole body of French Protestants had gone
through, since the death of Henry II. Considering all
things, no one can be surprised that they came to
the resolution to take up arms, since the royal
authority was not strong enough to protect their lives
and liberties. It is very important to notice where
the religious scruple lay which had hitherto prevented
them taking up arms. It was not the very earnest
injunctions which our Lord gave His disciples against
resisting their enemies, but the apparent support
which St. Paul gave to the doctrine of passive ob-
THE WAR OF 1563. 71
edience. Moreover^ too^ the very thoroughness with
which they had thrown off the old superstitions con-
nected with papal and episcopal authority rendered
thoughtful and prudent men more afraid than their
Catholic forefathers to put themselves in open rebellion
against the royal authority.
At last the opposing forces approached each other.
Conde's brother,, Navarre, and Coligny's uncle, Mont-
morenci, were, with the Dake of Guise, the leaders
of the Catholic forces. As usual, the war consisted
of parleys, engagements, sieges. The Huguenots lost
Bourges and Rouen, but at the siege of the latter
city the King of Navarre was killed. At the battle
of Dreux both sides lost a leader, Conde and Mont-
morenci being taken prisoners. Finally, a Huguenot
officer assassinated the Duke of Guise, and the war
collapsed. Montmorenci and Conde were commis-
sioned to arrange terms of peace, which, through the
moral weakness of the latter, were very unfavourable
for the Protestants (1563).
The colloquy at Poissy had taught Catherine much.
At one time she had thought the Calvinists would
conquer, and accordingly had made arrangements for
changing her religion and that of the king. But, find-
ing that during the civil war the mass of the people
remained faithful to the ancient religion, she came to
the conclusion that it was safer to side with the
Catholics. This, it became clear to her, was the policy
she ought to take, when, by the deaths of Guise and
Navarre, the Catholic party was without a head.
Henceforth she took that position, and came to look
on Coligny and Conde as her personal foes. In June,
1565, Catherine had met the Duke of Alva at Bayonne,
and the question they discussed was how to deal with
Protestantism. Alva led the queen-mother from point
to point, until he made her see that there was only one
72 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
remedy^ and that was extirpation. He particularly
insisted on tlie destruction of Coligny. ^ One salmon/
lie kept saying, ^is worth many frogs.' True to her
cat-like nature, she gave so little sign of this change
in her policy, that she still supported L^ Hospital as
chancellor. His well-known devotion to justice and
humanity served as a cover to the designs she began
to entertain.
The cause of corruption and tyranny was now
greatly strengthened by the entry of the Jesuits into
France, first under another name, and then opeuly.
Their success was rapid; they soon had flourishing
establishments at Lyons, Toulouse, and Bordeaux.
But the religious character of the strife was greatly
intensified by the accession, at the close of the year
1565, of Pius v., the most fanatic of popes. To
strengthen the Catholic cause in France, he despatched
such military forces as his utmost efforts could com-
mand, giving their leader the monstrous injunction to
^ take no Huguenot prisoner, but instantly to kill
every one that should fall into his hands.'
On the other hand, the new life in Christendom
surged and boiled like some active volcano. All
things presaged a general eruption. It burst out in
the Netherlands, and it was impossible that France
should not feel the general upheaval.
XIV.
Killing or Being Killed.
The change in the action of Coligny, in 15C7, is evi-
dence of the great progress in the Reform movement.
Instead of the fear and doubt with which he entere 1
on the first war, he now proposed to raise the Cal-
vinists G]i masBB, to attack and destroy the Swiss
DEATH OF MONTMORENCL 73
mercenaries, to arrest and drive out of France the
Cardinal of Lorraine, to seize the king, and govern the
country in his name (1567).
The rising took Catherine by surprise, and she fled
with the king to Meaux, and then fled back, pursued
by the Huguenots, to Paris. They established them-
selves at St. Denis, and demanded religious liberty
without distinction of places or persons, equal admis-
sion of the followers of both religions to all offices in
the State, the reduction of the imposts, and the con-
vocation of the States-General.
The old Constable, Montmorenci, took the field
against his nephews. All the reactionary forces in
Paris joined to put down the Huguenots ; the city of
Paris gave 400,000 livres, the prelates voted 250,000
crowns in the name of the clergy, the crown pledged
its diamonds at Venice for 100,000 crowns, its rubies
at Florence for 100,000 more.
A battle took place on the 10th of November at St.
Denis, in which Coligny and Conde commanded the
Huguenots, while Coligny's uncle and cousins led the
royal troops. Conde charged with fury, and Mont-
morenci was surrounded and killed. In the end
the Huguenots had to retire. Their numbers were too
small, and the gentlemen, of whom their army was
mainly composed, were too independent, too unwilling
to endure protracted fatigues. Coligny had in con-
sequence to agree to a treaty, for the maintenance of
which there was no guarantee.
Peace was no sooner made than Catherine began to
prepare for another war. The pope gave her permis-
sion to alienate 50,000 crowns from the goods of the
Church, the bull expressly stipulating that the money
should be used for the extermination of the heretics.
The Huguenot leaders were now seen flying from
spot to spot. On one occasion, hurrying from Noyers
74 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
to the other side of the Loire, they, and the large
company of women and children with them, were in
the greatest danger. The country was covered with
troops, and they knew of no bridge or crossing-place
which would not be blockaded. While wondering
what they should do, one of their gentlemen came up
and told them that, owing to the late drought, a ford
existed, where they could cross. They pushed on, and
by the aid of two or three little boats, in which they
put the women and children, they got over. But no
sooner were they safely landed than a sudden rise took
place in the river, protecting them from their pursuers,
who by this time were seen on the other side. But
now the Loire overflowed its banks, and a boat could
not cross without danger. Moved by a deliverance
which seemed little less than a miracle, the fugitives
fell on their knees and sang the 114tli Psalm, celebra-
ting the passage of the R-ed Sea.
L^Hospital being now dismissed, Catherine wrote to
Philip II. that religious liberty had been revoked, and
that there remained nothing to be done but to combine
the military operations in France and the Netherlands.
In September, 15G8, the Parliament of Paris forbade,
under pain of death, the exercise of any religion other
than the Catholic and Roman, and ordered all Protes-
tant ministers to quit France in a fortnight. Another
decree obliged all Protestants to resign any offices
they held in the judicature or the finances, and com-
pelled all members of Parliament or the universities
to take an oath of allegiance to Catholicism. As the
news spread the Protestants rose indignant, and the
court heard with consternation that a rebellion raged
through France. In three weeks the greater part of
Poitou, Angoumois, and Saintonge were conquered by
the Huguenot generals. The estuary of the Gironde
was in their hands, and in the south-east the governors
POBTRAIT OF CoLIGNY.
(From an ancient print.)
BATTLE OF MONCONTOUR. 77
of tlie various towns could do notliing to stop tlie
popular rising.
The Diike of Anjou, followed by the young Dakes
of Guise and Montmorenci, and, advised by Tavannes,
advanced against the Protestants, and at Jarnac de-
feated Conde and Coligny. Conde was killed and his
body infamously outraged by the despicable com-
mander, who when he became Henry III. had Guise
murdered and kicked the corpse.
But the Hugaenot leaders did not lose heart.
Jeanne d'Albret presented her son, afterwards Henry
lY., and the young Conde to the army as those who
would revenge the death of their general.
Meanwhile Coligny, in whose hands the command
was now concentrated, had been condemned by a
decree of the Parliament of Paris, dated the 19th of
March, 15G9, to be hanged and strangled in the Place de
Greve, and then to be taken to Montfaucon, and there
to be hanged in the highest place that could be found.
If he could not be apprehended, then this was to be
done to his efSgy. All his goods were declared con-
fiscated to the king, his children ignoble, villeins,
low-born, infamous, incapable of holding any office,
dignity, or wealth in the kingdom. In fine, a reward
was offered of 50,000 crowns for Coligny, dead or
alive.
On the 3rd of October, 1569, the Huguenot army
was beaten at Moncontour. It was a terrible disaster.
Out of twenty-five thousand soldiers only six or eight
thousand remained, the rest were slain or prisoners.
Coligny was wounded in three places at the com-
mencement of the action, and had to be carried off the
field. The admiral, lying in his litter wounded, defeated,
and hopeless if any man should be, suddenly saw
the curtain lifted, and another wounded man look ni
bis face, shining with the peace of heaven. ' SI est ce
78 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
qiie D'leii est tres doux,'' ^ he says^ drops the veil, and
sinks back on his litter. It was like an angel from
heaven strengthening the hero in the darkest moment
of his life.
XV.
Demoralization.
If we consider the sorb of world in which the French
Reformed Churches arose, we shall not be surprised
if, instead of the peaceful triumphs of Christian civili-
zation, we read of scarcely anything but sieges and
battles, popular risings, and cruel massacres. Nor
must we expect to find the members of these Churches
always stainless. Yesterday themselves Catholics,
infected with the turbulent spirit of the times, edu-
cated in the intolerant notions of the Middle Ages,
with its gross inequalities and its rough notions of
popular justice, we may deplore but cannot be sur-
prised if that happened in France which always
happens in religious wars. An exterminating and
persecuting spirit had become part of the temperament
of Roman Catholicism before Protestantism was born
or dreamt of. It was only when the latter began to
use ^ force,' the time-honoured weapon of the Roman
Catholic Church, that Protestantism caught a similar
spirit and fell occasionally into acts of terrorism.
The massacre of the Protestants of Yassy, in 1561,
inaugurated a series of massacres which, taken alto-
gether, Michelet declares were more murderous than
that of St. Bartholomew. It is said that between
^ The opening line of the paraphrase of the seventy-third
Psalm.
* Surely God is good to Israel,
Even to such as are pure in heart.'
DEMORALIZATION, 79
1561-1562^ forty-eiglit persons died of fright, six were
buried alive, twenty- three burnt, nine drowned, four
hundred and forty-three hanged or shot, one hundred
and seventeen women died of hunger and cold, forty- two
children had their throats cut ; the pen refuses further
details : . . . altogether one thousand three hun-
dred victims.
It was this terrible condition of things that brought
about the first civil war. During the four years that
followed the peace of 1568, the condition of the
Protestants throughout France had been getting worse
and worse. Their great and powerful enemies, the
pope and the King of Spain, were urging their exter-
mination; edicts were being sent out against them,
forbidding them to make collections, to assemble
synods, etc. ; the Duke of Alva had crossed the Alps,
and was marching along the frontier, passing near to
Geneva. Altogether the danger was so great that even
Coligny made up his mind that the only thing to do
was to seize the king, and govern in his name. It
was at this juncture that a tumult in Nimes ended in
a massacre of some jjriests, a deplorable act and a
disgrace to the Huguenot cause. Unfortunately, we
know its details only through Catholic historians,
the Protestant chroniclers of the time having been
ashamed to say anything about it. The pecuHar ex-
citement in which the Huguenots were then living had
in NiQies been worked up to a pitch by the fact that
their Catholic governor had interfered in the annual
election of the consuls, and although the Protestants
were the more numerous and influential, had caused
four Catholics to be elected.
A slight circumstance put a spark to the tinder.
It was the second day of the fair at Nimes, Michaelmas,
1567. Some soldiers overturned the basket of one of
the market women and kicked her vegetables into the
8o THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
air. The woman raised a cry_, and all tlie market was
soon in tlie greatest confusion^ the disorder being in-
creased by the ontcry made against the soldiers who^
to save themselves^ pnt their hands to their swords :
' To arms ! kill the papists ! ^ It was the signal for an
outbreak.
The first consul tried in vain to appease the tumult.
The people, led by a military man^ rushed to the epis-
copal palace; the bishop had. just time to get out at
the back^ and was conducted by a Huguenot away from
the town. Meanwhile the first consul was arrested,
the bishop^s palace pillaged, the vicar-general killed,
the cathedral sacked ; and^ if we are to believe Catholic
historians of Provence and Languedoc, the insurgents
threw a Franciscan monk and a number of priests
down a well. This massacre is known in Nimois his-
tory as the Michelade, because of the particular feast
at which ifc occurred.
Whether Christians are right, under any circum-
stances, in taking up arms in defence of their faith,
is a question which this history suggests, and which
it can hardly fail to answer. Already the French
Calvinists had met with defeat after defeat, already a
very great number among them had come to a prema-
ture and violent end, and already they had become,
what was worst of all, demoralized. As the war con-
tinued, their spiritual life declined, and a fierce bandit
temper began to prevail. These things tried Coligny
perhaps more than his defeats. With his own hands
he chastised one of his captains whom he caught
pillagiugj and to employ the wild energy of others, he
sent a whole band into Brabant to assist the Nether-
landers. But he had foreseen this result. When,
during the first war, he had noticed that there was no
swearing, no dice-playing, no pillaging in the Hugue-
not camps, but constant prayer and psalm-siuging, he
DEMORALIZA TION. 8 1 •
said, with a sad forecast of the demoralization war
must surely bring, ^ Dejeune liermite y vieux diable."
This demoralization of the Protestant laity had a
serious influence on their ecclesiastical position. In
the consistories, the provincial and the national
synods, the laity had been originally well represented ;
under the moral condition brought about by these
wars, Beza and the Genevese authorities were in
favour of shutting them out, and confining the rule of
the Church to the ministers. But as this would have
been impossible with regard to the powerful nobility
at their head, as was shown in the national synod of
1571, it is clear that if victory instead of defeat had
crowned their efforts^ the Reformed Churches would
have been handed over to clerical and aristocratic
domination.
In the midst of all these difficulties, Coligny strug-
gled on with the heroism of despair. A new army
was got together in the south-eastern provinces.
Moving to the north-west, Coligny crossed the Loire,
defied the enemy near Arnay-le-Duc, and marched
towards Paris. Meanwhile a powerful ally was coming
to his aid.
Charles IX. was one of the most unfortunate of
princes. His birth, his temperament, his surroundings
hurried him into a crime which loads him with infamy;
but he was the best of his race, the only member of
the whole Valois family with whom wo can feel the
slightest sympathy, there was a touch of honesty,
of generosity, of nobility about him which rendered
liim more and more inexplicable to his mother, who
felt him slipping out of her hands. Her favourite son
was the infamous and dastardly Anjou, and the result
of her proceedings had been to create in the king's
mind a violent antipathy to his brother. The battles
of Jarnac and Moncontour, at which Anjou nominally
82 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
commanded^ had given him a false gloiy, for no one
could be less of a hero than this effeminate prince.
His very presence fretted the king^ who in his loneli-
ness turned to the only man strong enough to help
him, even to Coligny, at that moment an apparent
rebel. This doubtless was the explanation of the
treaty which the Protestants now obtained, by which
liberty of conscience was conceded, and a certain
measure of liberty of worship. Protestants were
again eligible for the public service, and were to have
those offices restored from which they had been
ousted ; and as a guarantee four cities — La Rochelle,
Montauban, Cognac, and La Charite — were to remain
for two years in their hands.
XVI.
ChAELES IX. AND COLIGNY.
Thus to all appearance these terrible civil wars were
happily concluded, and to seal the reconciliation a
royal marriage was arranged between Henry of Navarre
and the king's sister, Margaret.
Invited to court, Coligny responded to the king's
affectionate welcome with ardour, and thought of
nothing but carrying out the grand idea of his life,
which was to make France the head and centre of the
Protestant movement. He soon induced the king to
break with Spain, to look askance at Queen Elizabeth,
and to support the patriots in the Netherlands. In
this way he promised not only to enlarge France, but
to give it colonies.
Charles threw himself into Coligny's policy, and
pushed on his sister's marriage with some violence.
Catherine, Anjou, and their Italian set watched for
some moment when they might turn the king against
CHARLES IX. AND COLIGNY. 83
his new minister. But the heroic courage of Coligny
in remaining at Paris surrounded by enemies who^he
must have known were thirsting for his blood, main-
tained the confidence of the king. A strong convic-
tion that his whole course was predestined, and his
life absolutely secure until the appointed moment, is
tlie^ only explanation of the almost reckless way in
which Coligny exposed himself. He went on his
course totally regardless of his foes.
To the Catholics this temper must have looked like
domineering audacity, and they resolved to assassinate
him without delay.
Catherine and her 'most dear' Anjou accordingly
confederated with the man who had been nurtured
from childhood in the belief that Coligny had caused his
father to be assassinated. The Duke of Guise under-
took the murder of the admiral. If the Huguenots rose
to revenge him, the populace of Paris would side with
the Guise, and there would be a general melee, in which
many of the queen-mother's enemies would be killed.
The royal marriage took place on the 18th of August,
1572. Four days after, as Coligny was returning from
the Louvre to his lodging, he was fired at from a house
in the cloister of St. Germain FAuxerrois. The index
finger of his right hand was taken off, and the shot
lodged in his left arm.
Charles was playing at tennis with Guise and
Teligny, Coligny's son-in-law, when the news was
brought him. 'Am I never to have peace?' he
exclaimed. He went to see the admiral, his mother
and his brother followed him. The wounded man
asked to see the king alone. Catherine cut the inter-
view short, and in the coach as they were returning
pressed Charles to tell her what Coligny had said.
' He told me to beware of you,' he replied, in a worried,
angry manner.
84 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Catlierlne saw that there was uo time to lose, the
blow had failed, the Huguenots would be alarmed and
on their guard. She called together her fellow con-
spirators, and they determined that the king must be
induced to consent to the destruction of Coligny forth-
with. They went to the king's cabinet and affirmed
one after the other that tlie Huguenots were arming
against him in defence of the admiral. Excited and
worried, Charles seemed to believe what they said, but
resolutely refused to listen to any proposal against
Coligny. The conspirators felt themselves losing
ground, especially as one of their number, the Marshal
de Retz, began to falter, and to say that to put the
admiral out of the way would be perfidious and
disloyal. However, no one seconding him, the rest
picked up their courage and combated his doubts with
energy. And they conquered, for all at once ^ w^e
recognised,^ said the Duke of Anjou, long afterwards,
in a moment of repentance, ^ a sudden change and a
strange metamorphose in the king, who ranged him-
self on our side and embraced our opinion, going much
farther and more criminally, so that he who had been
persuaded with difficulty it was now difficult to
restrain, for rising up and commanding silence, he,
with fury and anger, in swearing by the dear God,
said to us, '^ Since you find it good to kill the admiral,
let it not only be done, but at the same time all the
Huguenots in France, in order that there may be none
to reproach us, and let the order be given at once ! '^
And going out furiously he left us in his cabinet, where
we held a consultation during the rest of the day and
during a good part of the night as to the best means
of carrying out the project.'
THE MURDER OF COLIGNY. 85
XVII.
The Murder op Coligny.
On the niglit before the massacre of August the 24th,
1572, the admirals daughter Louise, with her husband
Teiigny, did not wish to quit their father, but he
begged them to go and take a little repose. As day
began to break. Guise, D^Aumale, and the bastard of
Angouleme made their way to Coligny^s hotel. One
of their number knocked at the door ; the man who
kept the keys came to open it, when he was at once
thrown down and poignarded. The arquebusiers that
Guise had brought immediately threw themselves on
the Swiss who were guarding the hotel, but who after
a struggle succeeded in barricading the door of the
staircase.
Coligny, hearing the noise, thought there was a
popular outbreak in the neighbourhood of the hotel.
He rose from his bed and put on a dressing-gown.
But the shots which struck the window told that it
was an attack on the hotel itself. He asked a minister
present to offer prayer, and he himself invoked Jesus
Christ, his God and Saviour, commending himself into
His hands.
Suddenly, one of his servants rushed into the room,
and addressing Coligny said : ' God has called us to
Himself, my lord; the hotel is forced, resistance is
impossible ! ^
The admiral quietly answered : ^ It is a long time
since I have been ready to die ; save yourselves if it be
possible, for you cannot preserve my life. I recom-
mend my soul to the grace of God.'' All fled, one
servant alone, Nicolas Muss, refused to go.
The murderers soon burst into the room ; the first
was a servant of Guise, named Behme. ^ Are you the
86 THE /REFORMATION- IN FRANCE.
admiral ? ' he said^ poiutiug a sword at Coligny's
breast.
'YeSj I ara he/ replied the victim; ^you ought
to respect old age and my infirmity, but you cannot
make my life more brief/
Behme with an oath plunged his sword into the
admiraFs breast, and then struck him several blows
on the head, the others then severally gave a blow, and
Coligny fell to the ground.
' Have you finished ? ' a voice cried from the bottom
of the court.
' It is done,^ replied the assassins.
' Then throw him out of the window,^ said the Duke
of Guise; Hhey can't believe it unless they see it with
their own eyes/
The murderers lifted the body ; there was life in it
yet, for it made an eS'ort to get out of their hands.
They threw it on the pavement, and it was only then
Coligny gave his last sigh.
Guise took a pocket-handkerchief and wiped the
face. 'Yes, it is he ; I recognise him.'' And striking
the venerable head with the heel of his boot, he sprang
on his horse and rode away, saying, ' Courage, sol-
diers ; we have begun happily, now let us go after the
others.'
XYIIL
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
* How often had I predicted it ! how often did I warn
them it was coming ! ' Catherine de Medici might
have mockingly taken up Beza's querulous lament and
have repeated, ' What warnings I gave them of it ! '
The betrothal on the 17th of August produced an
explosion; the preachers foamed, the anger of God
if" '^
11 !\'^^^
r
pi]
O
t-1
O
W
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cq
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MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 89
was about to fall, there would be torrents of blood.
The weddings took place on the 18th, and for four
days, or rather nights, the court madly danced or
played the buffoon. One night they acted in mas-
querade an Italian play, The Mystery of the Three
Worlds. Paradise filled with nymphs was attacked by
the two young Protestant princes, and defended by
the king and his brothers, who, at the pikers point
drove the assailants off to the shores of hell, where the
devils kept them imprisoned for a whole hour while
their conquerors danced with the nymphs. Then the
combat recommenced, explosions of gunpowder took
place on all sides, the smoke and sulphurous stench
putting the whole company to flight.
Thus the cat played with the mice, almost telling
its victims the fate intended for them. This tenebrous
play was acted between the 18th and the 21st. On
the 22nd, the first attempt to assassinate Coligny was
made. The Protestant princes and gentlemen swore
among themselves to avenge the admiral. The news
spread through Paris that the furious Huguenots were
going to cut the throat of the favourite, the Duke of
Guise. On Saturday the king was driven into consent-
ing to the massacre. The order was given to Guise
by Catherine and Anjou at 11 p.m., and at midnight
the city was called upon to arm. Four hours were
thus occupied, but by the break of day Coligny was
killed. Then came a moment of hesitation. Catherine
and Anjou, satisfied with the death of their great
enemy, would have drawn back, but it was too late.
Guise and the Paris Catholics were not to be defrauded.
The slaughter commenced in the Tuileries. The gay
young bridegrooms, offered their choice of the mass
or death, accepted the former; their followers were
slaughtered. Hunted from room to room, forced by
the royal archers down the stairs of the palace, they
90 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
were driven at last like a flock of sheep into the court-
yard of the Louvre. Here they were murdered under
the eyes of the king, who either came or was dragged
to the window. These men, his guests, made him
pathetic appeals. One of them, the hero of Saint-
Jean-d^Angely, claimed the performance of his promise
in a voice so terrible that the very court seemed to shake.
The king^s brain gave way, he evidently went mad ;
a number of Huguenots from the quartier St. Germain
coming to the Louvre for protection were fired upon.
The king, who was at the window, saw them turn.
' They fly ! they fly ! ^ he exclaimed. ' Give me an
arquebuse.' And takiug a gun this poor king, torn by
a legion of devils, fired on his own people !
Far from approving the massacre, the authorities at
the Hotel de Yille sent to the kiug begging him to
prevent his household, his princes, and his servants
from going on killing and j)illaging. The king im-
mediately sent an order to stop all. But it was too
late; all the bad passions in the city were let loose.
Thus a great number of tradesmen fell victims to the
unparalleled opportunity of getting rid of competitors
without fear of the consequences. The Parisian Pro-
testants were for the most part shoemakers, book-
sellers, binders, hatters, weavers, pin-makers, barbers,
armourers, dealers in second-hand clothes, coopers,
watchmakers, jewellers, carpenters, gilders, button-
makers, ironmongers. However, the lists of the miss-
ing on this terrible occasion show how Calvinism had
drawn into its ranks the most illustrious artists in
France. Jean Goujon (1515-1572), one of the greatest
sculptors France has produced, came, on St. Bartholo-
mew's day, to his end. Tradition says he was shot
while at work on a scaffold in the Louvre. Claude
Goudimel (1510-1572) was among the victims at
Lyons. He was one of the first musicians of his time
THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, 91
and did a great work in setting the Huguenot psalter
to music.
After such a Sunday's work as that of the 24th of
August, 1572, the murderers were somewhat fatigued;
besides, both the city and royal authorities said stop.
Not so the religious bigots. Suddenly the bells were
heard ringing from church to church. It was the tocsin,
that appeal to popular fury so common in the free cities
of Flanders and Italy. The massacre re-opened with
a new and peculiar atrocity. Neighbours killed neigh-
bours, women with child were ripped open, fathers
were slaughtered with their little ones hanging to
their knees, infants were seized by the neck and
thrown like blind kittens into the river ; the Seine, in
fact, was the grand receptacle for the dead. The air
was full of frightful cries, sudden shrieks, pistol shots,
bursting of doors, the howling of the mob as they
dragged a corpse to the river.
This was the fate of the illustrious Ramus, who was
only put to death on the third day of the massacre, the
26th of August. Paid assassins forced the College of
Prasles, and found him in his study on the fifth floor.
They hardly allowed him a moment of prayer before
they fired on him and ran him through with a sword.
Then they threw him out of window into the court
below, and dragged the body by a cord to the river.
There it is said to have been decapitated, and, after
floating in the river, dragged to the shore, where it
lay exposed to every indignity.
Seeing the popularity of the massacre, the king was
now induced to claim all its credit; so, on the 26th,
he went down to the Parliament, and said, ' It was I
who ordered the massacre.' Upon this adventurers,
more or less authorized, departed for the provinces,
where in the various cities they constituted themselves
directors of systematic murder and pillage. The
92 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Protestants were tlirowu into prison^ then massacred.
In some places the local authorities superintended ;
generally they stood aside ; sometimes they resisted.
While there can be no doubt that this massacre was
exactly what the leaders of the Catholic party in
Europe had desired for years, it would be unjust to
hold the great bulk of the French clergy and laity
responsible. The Bishop of Lisieux absolutely re-
fused to permit a massacre of Huguenots in his
diocese, and gave the king's lieuteuant a written dis-
charge to that effect. The Catholics on the banks of
the Rhone shuddered to see the river blotted with
corpses, and cried to God against the assassins.
On the other hand, the Parliament of Paris, the
representative of law, but not of justice, established a
fete in honour of the holy work done on this blessed
day of Saint Barthelmy. Moreover, they found
Coliguy the guilty cause of it all, and condemned
him to be dragged through the mire and hanged.
His effigy was suspended on the Place de Greve, while
his scorched, mutilated remains were hanged in a
ludicrous position at Montfaugon. The king and the
court went there to mock and ridicule. They had the
incredible inhumanity to take Coligny's two sons to
look at their father's corpse. The elder began to sob,
but the youDger gazed steadily. Perhaps he dimly
foresaw what after ages admit, viz. that Coliguy is
one of the noblest figures in the whole history of
France.
XIX.
After St. Bartholomew.
Henry IV. often related to his most intimate friends
that eight days after the massacre a number of ravens
AFTER ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 93
gatlierecl about tlie flag on the Louvre. Their noise
brought every one to look at them, and the women
communicated their fright to the king. That same
nighty two hours after going to bed, Charles IX.
sprang up, had the people of his chamber called, and
among others his brother-in-law, that they might hear
a tremendous noise in the air, a concert of voices^
screaming, groaning, howling, just like that heard on
the night of the massacre. These sounds were so
distinct that the king, believing some fresh disorder
had broken out, sent his guards through the city to
prevent murder. But having brought back word that
the city was in peace, and the air only troubled, he
also remained troubled, principally because the noise
continued for seven days at the same hour.
These sights and sounds, which, in the midst of a
court the dupes of sorcerers and astrologers, a guilty
conscience imagined, were a real and awful foreboding
of judgment to come. The Louvre and the represen-
tatives of Charles IX. and his court would surely see
it realized. For a time, however, Charles was in a
full tide of glory. The pope chanted the Tc Deum,
and sent him the golden rose. Two months after the
massacre, Queen Elizabeth stood godmother to his
infant daughter; six months later on, William of
Orange recognised him as Protector of Holland, and
king of whatever he could conquer in the Low
Countries, the Taciturn's brother, Louis of Nassau,
working to make him Emperor of Germany and his
brother King of Poland. But what seemed most of
all to cover him with glory was the visible jealousy of
Philip XL and the Duke of Alva. They were enraged
to think that beside Charles they appeared feeble and
vacillating. Yet the King of Prance was to the last
degree wretched and miserable. His face had become
pale and haggard, his eyes jaundiced and menacing;
94 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
lie talked constantly of killing. To distract his melan-
choly, lie had parties of pleasure at the places of
public execution, and spent his nights in riots. A
year of this life, and he was in his grave, glad on his
own account, as well as for France, that he left no
posterity. For the state of the country soon assured
him that, however much he might have frightened
foreigners by the apparent strength of the blow,
his own people were for ever alienated. One of the
first results was that the Protestants in self-defence
began to form themselves into a distinct political
society.
A number of pastors and gentlemen met at Mon-
taubau, and drew up the plan of a confederation.
Each Protestant city was to name a council of a
hundred persons, without distinction of class, to direct
all their affairs: justice, police, taxation, and war;
and these councils were to elect a general head.
Moderation and gentleness were to be shown towards
pacific Catholics, but those in arms were to be treated
with the utmost rigour. The Duke of Alva^s recipe,
* A good salmon is worth a hundred frogs,' showed his
ignorance of the genius of the Reformation. Appeal-
ing to the individual conscience, it made men ; the
little became great.
Nothing could exceed the bravery shov/ii at the
siege of Sancerre. Rather than submit, the beleaguered
citizens ate slugs, moles, bread made of ground straw
and crushed slate; they cooked the harness of their
horses, and even old parchments. At La Rochelle
the courage of the besieged was remarkable even in
that age of marvellous endurance. At low water,
women and ministers, and even children, might be
seen in the water under fire trying to set light to the
royal vessels. Under their brave on aire, Jacques
Henri, they refused to submit, and finally preserved
THE TREATY OF CHASTENOY. 95
the city, as a sort of Protestant republic, in the
face of the Catholic monarchy. These brave and
successful defences so inspired the Protestants that
they met in confederation at Montauban in 1573, and
demanded all that had been accorded by the treaty
of 1570.
Meanwhile new maxims on law and political liberty
were gaining ground among Catholics, and a political
party, under the Duke of Alencon, was formed, with
which the Huguenots, in December, 1573, formed a
league. This alliance proved full of difficulties. The
religious Calvinists, mostly tradesmen, regarding
religious objects as of the first importance, were slow
to fight, but when they began, did not wish to lay
down their arms until the end was attained. The
political malcontents, mainly noblemen, were ready to
take up arms on the first occasion, and equally ready
to sacrifice religious objects to political ones. How-
ever, the alliance was so powerful, that, to dissolve it,
the court offered both parties favourable terms. To
the Protestants, free exercise of religion all over the
kingdom, Paris alone excepted ; admission to public
employment ; mixed chambers in the parliaments,
securing equal justice; eight places of safety; right
of opening schools and convoking synods ; rehabilita-
tion of the memory of Coligny ; and re-establishment
of Navarre and Conde in their rights.
The treaty, signed at Chastenoy, May 6th, 1576,
gave great umbrage to the Catholic portion of the
nation. In the States- General held in that year, the
three orders demanded that all Protestants, ministers,
deacons, overseers, and schoolmasters, should be com-
pelled to quit the kingdom, or be made guilty of a
capital offence. France was distinctly divided into
two nations.
96 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
XX.
New Dangers.
The Huguenots again took up arms, the religious
party among tliem being by far the most determined.
The Huguenot lords, although besought by Beza to
lay their heads on the block rather than allow the
Word of God to be limited, would not listen to the
consistories,' but signed a peace in September, 1577,
by which the exercise of the Reformed religion was
restricted to certain places, and all Protestants excluded
from public employ.
The levity of the nobles was all through these
strusfo-les the weak element in the Protestant cause.
Dominating it by their position, they yielded at the
least seduction or at any unusual fatigue. During
forty years among all the Protestant martyrs only
three noblemen are found. And yet under Henry II.
they had joined the canse of Reform in crowds. It
passes all belief that within six years of the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew, Catherine de Medici should have
been able to visit, accompanied by her flying squadron
of fallen women, the Protestant court of the King of
Navarre, and that Iluofuenot lords and Catholic courte-
sans should have carried on the hypocritical farce of
conversing together in ^ the language of Canaan.'* But
Henry of Navarre was a type of the noblemen who
were Protestants because they were turbulent and
ambitious, and who, either personally or by their im-
mediate descendants, fell away directly it served their
purpose.
Unhappy Protestant people of France, led by such
careless worldlings, and that in the face of ever-
increasing danger ! The great conspirator of Europe
was not dead, and that vast plot of which all the
ASSASSINATION OF GUISE. 97
strings ended in Madrid was ever taking new forms.
In France it now appeared as the Holy League. The
Duke of Guise, the murderer of Coligny, was its
leader, and its object was to put down the Eeformed
Religion by terror and place him on the throne of
France. Le Balafre, as he was endearingly called in
Paris, played the part of Absalom, and grew in popu-
larity just in the degree that the Duke of Anjou, now
Henry III., declined. To outbid this formidable rival
the king himself signed the articles of the League, and
burnt some women in Paris. But it was of no use.
Le Balafre was carried in triumph to the Louvre, and
openly spoken of as the king of Paris. Henry III.
grew desperate, and had him assassinated, kicking his
corpse, just as he had kicked that of Coligny. Twelve
days after Catherine de Medici died, and Henry III.,
abhorred by all his Catholic subjects, was forced to
make friends with the Huguenots.
The last of the Valois, it was clear that the crown
would devolve on the Protestant King of Navarre, and
to prepare the way that politic prince issued an appeal
to the Catholics.
The League revenged the murder of the Duke of
Guise. Within eight months Henry III. was assassin-
ated in his turn. Nearly every one of the criminals
of St. Bartholomew came to a miserable end.
XXL
The Edict of Nantes,
Henry of Navarre was now the only possible King of
France, but the Catholic nobility refused allegiance
unless he abjured Protestantism. For decency's sake
he asked for six months' delay, during which time he
would consent to instruction in the Catholic religion.
G
98 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
To hvm^ him rapidly to decision^ all liis Catholic fol-
lowers deserted. On the 25tli of July^ 1593, he con-
verted himself, to translate literally French idiom, here
strictly applicable. Never did any action appear more
worldly-wise, never was any followed by more disastrous
consequences. It was the first step in the ruin of the
house of Bourbon and of the French monarchy, and,
infinitely more to be deplored, of the religious sentiment
in myriads of sincere minds.
The Protestants at once learnt that in the affairs of
the kingdom of heaven worldly success means ruin.
Their own leader King of France, he at once agreed
to the demands made by the dominant party in Rouen,
Meaux, Poitiers, Agen, Beauvais, Amiens, St. Malo,
and Paris, that no Huguenot preaching should take
place within their walls, but must be confined to the
suburbs.
To allay the discontent of his late co-religionists,
the king tacitly consented to their holding political
assemblies. For this purpose France was divided into
ten districts, each of which named a deputy to the
general council, which, whatever its numbers, was
composed two-fifths of gentlemen, two-fifths com-
moners, one-fifth pastors; that is, three-fifths men of
the third estate. Below this general council were
provincial councils, composed of from five to seven
members, of which one must be the governor of a
fortress, and one a pastor.
The deputies took an oath of obedience, and it was
obligatory on the members of the Churches to respect
the decisions of the councils. A permanent fund of
4,500 crowns was contributed by the faithful. The
council-general received reports and complaints from
the provincial councils, and communicated them to the
court.
In 1597 the Reformed Churches complained that
THE EDICT OF NANTES. 99
tliroughoufc entire provinces^ Burgundy and Picardy
for example, tliere was no free exercise of religion;
that in Brittany tliey liad but one place of worship,
in Provence only two ; that their members were mal-
treated, stoned, thrown into the river ; that assemblies
were fired upon with cannon ; that Bibles were burnt ;
that consolation to the sick was forbidden; that children
were carried off or baptized forcibly by priests accom-
panied by the police ; that hostage cities were taken
away or dismantled ; that their poor were neglected,
even where Protestants gave most to the common
purse; that they were systematically excluded from
office, even from the magistracy of the cities ; that
there was no justice before the tribunals; that they
were made to pay enormous fines and subjected to
imprisonment on the least pretext; that their dead,
even those buried in the chapels of their ancestors,
were shamefully exhumed — their complaints, in fact,
fill a volume.
Such was the condition of the French Protestants,
after three-quarters of a century, during which they
had passed through four civil wars. But they had
appealed to force, and by its decision they had to
abide. As to Henry, he was a thorough man of the
world. He had great objects, and his rule was bene-
ficent. But the Protestants would have failed to
secure the advantages they had obtained, even under
Charles IX. and Henry III., had they not had these
political assemblies. Five were held between 1595
and 1597; their pertinacity and threatening attitude,
coupled with the fact that he was closely pressed by
the Spanish arms, compelled Henry to consent at last
to their demands. Finally, after long and laborious
negotiations, they obtained in April, 1598, the Edict
of Nantes. By its provisions full liberty of the indi-
vidual conscience was guaranteed, public worship was
loo THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE,
permitted in all places where it was established in
1597, and in the suburbs of all cities; lords high
justices could have it celebrated in their mansions ;
gentlemen of the second degree were permitted to
receive thirty persons to private worship. All the
public offices were opened to Protestants, the schools
to their children, the hospitals to their sick, the right
to print books was accorded, of mixed chambers in
some of the parliaments, and a special chamber of the
edict was established in Paris, composed, however,
with one exception, entirely of Catholics.
Thus, after three-quarters of a century, during
which they had maintained a series of great wars, in
which they had lost, including those who had been
massacred, or put to death at the stake or on the
gallows, five hundred thousand of their co-religionists,
the Protestants only obtained permission to exist and
to share in the civil privileges of their countrymen,
and this under a king who was one of their own people.
But what could the Reformed Churches do with such
a man ? He belonged to another sphere, a totally
different order of things.
Agrippa d^Aubigne, whose severe and inflexible
character often embroiled him with the court, tells
how, having heard that Henry had threatened to kill
him, should he fall into his hands, he went immediately
to the lodging of the king's mistress, Gabrielle d'Es-
trees, and when the royal carriage arrived, presented
himself among the flambeaux. 'Here,' said the king,
'is Monseignetiv d'Aubigne,' a very ill-omened title.
However, D'Aubigne advanced, and the king not only
embraced him, but told Gabrielle to kiss him, and
then ordered him to give her his hand. He led the
lady to her apartment, where the king walked about
talking to him for two hours. In the course of the
conversation, Henry showed his visitor the cut he had
AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNA. ioi
received shortly before from a young pupil of the
Jesuits, who had tried to assassinate him. ^ Sire/ said
the austere Calvinist, ' having only renounced God
with your lips, He has only pierced your lips. If you
renounce Him with your heart, He will pierce you to
the heart. ^ ^ Very fine words/ said Gabrielle, ' but not
well employed!^ ^True, madame/ replied D^Aubigne,
'for they will be of no use.' The king, apparently
unaffected, sent for his infant child, and put it, quite
naked, into the stern old Calvinist's arms. What
could D'Aubigne reply to such an argument ? The king
belonged to one world, he to another. The one repre-
sented Nature, the other Grace.
BOOK IL
FEOM TEE EDICT OF NANTES TO ITS
EEVOGATION.
I.
Prosperous but Declining.
At no period in French history, from the clays of
Henry II. to those of Louis XVI., did the French
Protestants come so near the Hebrew ideal of well-
being as during the twelve years of Henry the Fourths
reign. After the Edict of Nantes their legal position
was assured, and though still subject to occasional
insult and injury, it might be said with some show of
truth that during this short period they sat 'every
man under his vine and under his fig tree, none daring
to make them afraid.-*
In such circumstances it was natural that they
should prosper. Their industry, thrift, and intelli-
gence, energised by religious faith, and sharpened by
a long-continued struggle for existence, together with
their sense of mutual dependence as members of a
persecuted party, were exactly the conditions which
must lead to the acquisition of wealth.
Abraham Bosse, whose clever graver has preserved
for us the character, costume, and manners of the
Louis-Treize period, has a large and fine series por-
103
104 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
traying ' Married Life/ The class he depicts are the
wealthy bourgeoisie, the class to which the Huguenots
largely belonged ; and as Abraham Bosse was himself
a Protestant, and this work a series of faithful delinea-
tions, it is fair to conclude that they are largely
drawn from the life by which the artist was surrounded.
The impression of material comfort they give is exactly
that produced by other Protestant artists of the time,
especially by those of the Netherlands.
In these engravings we see spacious parlours with
pictures and instruments of music, large and well-
furnished bedrooms ; a kitchen-scene shows the ovens
filled with the comestibles. In one engraving a
numerous party of ladies are enjoying a good dinner
in a bedroom, in celebration of the recovery of one of
their number from the perils of child-birth. When
the engraver gives us a glimpse into the farmyard, or
any figures of the peasantry, it is in the same style.
Abundauce is characteristic. All seem well-to-do,
some incline to be jovial. Compare this with what the
monuments of the time tell us about the general condi-
tion of the French peasantry, and the diflference is so
amazing that we can but conclude that this Protestant
engraver was at least brought up, if he did not con-
tinue to live, in a Land of Goshen.
Instead of the crossing of swords, there was contro-
versial warfare. The poorest Calvinist was a match for
most of the Catholic clergy, while a public disputation
or a caustic pamphlet was the chief weapon of the
accomplished layman or minister. Duplessis-Mornay,
whose exalted station, inflexible integrity, and great
learning had won for him such a position that he was
called the pope of the Calvinists, believed to such a
degree in the power of argument, that he thought a
controversy, after the precedent of the colloquy at
Poissy, might convince Henry of Navarre that he
PICTURES OF HUGUENOT LIFE. 105
ought not to enter the Roman Catholic Church. The
king encouraged the delusion at that time ; but when,
in 1600, Duplessis-Mornay demanded a public contro-
versy with Cardinal Duperron as to what the Fathers
had said about the doctrine of transubstantiation,
Henry took care it should be fruitless. For the pope
specially interested himself in it ; and Henry, who
wanted his sanction to a divorce from Marguerite de
Valois, was determined Urban IV. should not be
vexed by a Protestant victory.
• In one of the first of his domestic scenes, Bosse
represents a group of elders seated round a table
absorbed in a grave discussion. Three are venerable-
looking men in tall hats and long beards, two ladies
dignified and somewhat severe. In another part of
the room an evil-looking man makes love to the
daughter of the house, and one of the little ones is
frightening another with a great mask. Who can
doubt that the artist has here attempted to depict a
typical case ?
For this passion for controversy was not confined to
disputes with Catholics; we may be sure that still
more bitter debates went on between the two great
theological parties into which Protestantism was
divided. On the one hand there were the Arminians,
who represented moderate Calvinism, and the Go-
marists, who held the extreme view on the other.
There were also the political divisions into which the
Huguenot party was divided, a division existing from
these times until the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, broadly expressed by the words moderate and
zealous, or, as the more thorough going Calvinist would
have said, ^ lukewarm and zealous.''
io6 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE,
II.
Facilis Descensus Aveeni.
Henry IV. being very ill sent for Agrippa d^Aubigne.
After he had closed the door, and had twice knelt
down and prayed, he adjured D'Aubigne to tell him
if he had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost.
D^Aubigne proposed four tests by which the king
might try his conscience. The conversation, we are
told, lasted four hours and was intermingled with
frequent prayer.
Perhaps Henry was able to assure himself that he
was moved to abjure Protestantism more by the hope
of healing the wounds of his country than by a desire
to grasp the crown of France; but his example had
a fatal effect on the younger Huguenot nobles, who
naturally concluded that the way to rise in life was
to walk in the footprints of their royal master. In
fact, Henry^s example had made respectable that
worldliness which previously had worn the cloak of
conformity. The old Protestant historians divided the
Calvinisfcs at the opening of the reign of Louis XIII.
into four classes : the ambitious, the zealous, the judi-
cious, and the timid ; and for the first and last classes,
which it is according to human nature to suppose were
far the more numerous, there was no easier course
than to follow so illustrious an example as that of the
most popular monarch that ever sat on the French
throne.
The chances of defection from the Eeformed Church
were infinitely increased by all the tendencies of French
civilization during the first half of the seventeenth
century, which were entirely opposed to that harsh
manner of feeling and acting and speaking which
sometimes characterized Calvinism. An extreme re-
THE COUNTER-REFORMATION, 107
jSnement was cultivated in certain high circles. Grace
in deportment, elegance in dress_, a poetic phraseology/
a punctilious code of honour, became prevalent fashions.
Duelling was quite the rage. Readers of English his-
tory know how it alarmed James I. ; a much stronger
man, Cardinal Richelieu, tried to put it down in France,
but was completely defeated, the tide being too strong.
III.
The Counter-Refoemation in Feance.
Such a time was propitious for the advance of Jesuitism,
but very disheartening to those holding a creed serious
and profound as was that of Calviu. Henry IV. had
permitted the society to re-enter France ; it did more
perhaps by its general influence than by the direct
action of any of its leading members. It had leavened
the whole of the Catholic world ; it was the soul of the
counter-Reformation, which at this time was nearly
everywhere victorious. In Germany and in the
1 Shakespeare has satirised the affectation of refinement
then becoming the fashion in his play entitled Love's Labour
Lost. The scene is laid in France, and the King of Navarre
says :
' Onr court, you know, is haunted
With a refined traveller of Spain ;
A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
That hath a mint of phrases in his brain ;
One whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony ;
A man of complements, whom right and wrong
Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.'
Act. i. So. 1.
As this play was first published in 1598, it is clear this sorb
of fashion had come into vogue during Henry the Third's
reign.
loS THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Netherlands, tlie very countries which had taken the
lead in the Reformation, all the world were hastening
to declare themselves Catholic. The tremendous re-
action was enough to fill the most courageous with
despair.
And now appeared a man exactly suited to the
times : a man gentle, cultured, earnest, serious^ and
sweet, but who nevertheless prepared the way for the
Jesuits and the Dragonnades; for no one can work
for a cause without really strengthening its main
currents, and that in the very degree of his personal
virtues.
It was just two years before the Gunpowder Plot
that Francois de Sales came to Paris and preached
with great success in the court of Henry IV. A man
of birth, a practised lawyer of the most amiable temper,
moderate in all things, Francois de Sales advocated a
reasonable and a practical piety. So far from teaching
asceticism, provided the heart was humble and devout,
he permitted considerable conformity to the world in
action and demeanour, and did not require great
demonstrations of religious fervour. With his gentle,
persuasive voice, his mild, winning words, his moderate
and orthodox mysticism, his grace, courtesy, and tole-
rance, he was exactly the preacher to please a people
worn out by the acrid debates and furious struggles
of its two intense and austere creeds. Everybody was
delighted, especially the ladies. In 1608 he published
his most famous work, Tia Vie Devote. The success
was enormous. Edition after edition appeared, some
got up in a style peculiarly winning and attractive, all
the text being in running hand, with flourished and
caligraphic love-knots. The reader could scarcely fail
to be struck with the moderate and reasonable tone
of the book, and the acquaintance the author seems
to have with all the difficulties of life. Everything is
*'tA VIE devote:'
\
109
dwelt upon in a briei\ complete_, and interesting man-
ner. The doctrine i^ entirely and wholly Catholic^
according to the teaoiing of the Council of Trent.
There is not the slightest taint in it of the evangelical
creed. At the same time there is no passing note of
controversy: the gospel, as understood by Luther,
Calvin, and all the Reformers, is not denied, it is
simply ignored. Nowhere is this leaving out of every
characteristic note of Protestantism more manifest
than in the chapter on the Word of God. The devotee
is admonished to hear and read the Word of God
as spoken to him and to his friends, and as read in
books of devotion and the lives of the saints, but
his instructor carefully abstains from mentioning the
Bible.
The methods are strictly Catholic, and consist of the
sacrament of penance, meditation, and prayer. The
imagination has to be cultivated. All, however, is
moderate, sweet, tasteful, gentle. Thus he concludes his
chapters on meditation with such injunctions 8jS,Faites
le petit bouquet de devotion, or, Faites le petit bouquet
spirituel, by which he alludes to a pretty conceit, in
which he supposes the meditation has been like a
morning walk in a beautiful garden, which you are
loth to leave without making a bouquet of four or
five of the most lovely flowers, in order that their
fragrance and beautiful forms may remind you of the
refreshing scenes with which you commenced the day.
Finally, the bishop is careful to tell you that from the
very outset it is necessary to have a director, and that
the great means of acquiring perfection are obedience,
chastity, poverty. Nor can we doubt that he would
have said, in accordance with all the teachers of his
school, ^ And the greatest of these is obedience.^
With the aid of the excellent Madame de Chantal
he founded the Order of the Visitation, one of those
no THE REFORMATION IN -J^J^ANCE.
associations in wliich holiness wtis souglit through a
life of practical benevolence.
With this idea no one Jias m<^'e identified his name
than the friend of the Bishop of Gene va^ Vincent de
Paul. Refusing all wealth and honours^ he devoted
himself to the immense crowd of wretched beings
which the disastrous civil wars had made more than
usually numerous. He founded the Brothers and
Sisters of Charity, he interested himself in the welfare
of criminals and galley-slaves, found leisure for innu-
merable missions, made efforts to reform the morals
of the clergy, and did his utmost to get virtuous
prelates appointed. Men thought of him as a loving
old man, his arms filled with infants, whom he- had
picked up in his solitary walks through the dark
streets of Paris in the dead hours of the night.
In company with these two appears a third —
Pierre de Berulle, the reformer both of the monastic
orders and the secular clergy. For the first, his
model was St. Theresa; for the second, St. Philip
Neri. Pierre de Berulle was a man, like De Sales,
of a singularly sweet manner and an address tender
and persuasive. ^ If you want,^ said Cardinal Duper-
ron, • to convince a heretic, bring him to me ; if you
want to convert him, take him to M. de Geneve (Fran-
cois de Sales) j ^ and if j^ou want both to convince and
convert him, let him go to M. de Berulle.''
What could the Calvinists do in the presence of
such fascinating influences ? Their austere creed, and
the exclusiveness that resulted from it, was no match
for the practical piety, rational, moderate, and per-
fectly orthodox, inculcated by Francois de Sales ; still
^ The pope very early set Fran9ois de Sales, who was
Bishop of Geneva, the task of converting Theodore de Beza,
who received him with much courtesy, bat their conferences
had no result.
INFLUENCE OF FRANCOIS DE SALES. in
less for the practical benevolence, also rational and
perfectly orthodox^ wliicli now made itself felt every-
where, but especially in the
' Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city,
Where distress and want concealed themselves from the
sunlight, , «^
Where disease and scTrrow in garrets languished neglected.'
How could they protect even their own families from
the fashion for the culture of the sentimental which
now set in, and which naturally prepared every young
Huguenot, who gave himself or herself up to it, to
become the easy prey of the Church that rested so
much on this cidture ? The Calvinists were like
Daedalus in the Labyrinth of Crete : they might make
themselves wings and fly over these mountains of
difficulty and these oceans of despair, but they were
doomed to see their children fall one after the other.
Icarus perished because he flew too high ; these young
Huguenots because they had not faith to fly at all.
They thought it easier to swim with the tide than to
fly against the wind.
Defections like those of the inheritor of the name of
Henri de Conde, or of the daughter of the Marshal de
Lesdiguieres, might be easily sustained, but it was
heartbreaking to see the descendants of such illus-
trious Calvinists as Coligny and Agrippa d^Aubigno
selling themselves to the enemy.
IV.
In theie Misery the People Worship the Devil.
The Calvinists might have regarded without dismay
the defection of their aristocratic members, had they
felt themselves rooted in the heart of the country, had
112 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
the people been on tlieir side. But the people,
ignorant and superstitious, and suffering terrible
pri^^ations, were very unfavourably disposed to the
Huguenots. When for more than one generation
the people in the country had seen their cottages
burnt, tlieir farmyards fired, their vineyards and their
corn-fields destroyed, and their orchards turned into
charcoal; when the people in the towns had been
exposed to sudden assaults, to risings, to massacres —
in one word, to the horrors of civil war extending
over forty years, it was natural that they should begin
to curse the contending parties, and, unaware, in their
ignorauce of contemporary history, who were really
the aggressors, should listen to the lies afloat con-
cerning the Huguenots, and mingle both parties in one
common abjuration.
In the States-General of 1614 the third estate
depicted in moving terms the horrible condition to
which the French peasantry were reduced, who, they
declared, might be seen browsing on the grass like
animals and with the animals ; and this statement they
twice repeat, Guienne and the Auvergne being specially
mentioned on the second occasion. The misery which
such a statement indicates was certainly not wholly
due to these civil wars, but rather to the fact that the
mass of the poor were ever being crushed lower and
lower by the unjust system to which they were sub-
jected. The burden of taxation really fell on them,
for the poorer the masters grew the more they were
obliged to insist on their so called rights, until their
exactions rendered the peasants more miserable than
ever. Thus in the same States- General the orator of
the third estate denounced the nobility to the king in
the most passionate language. ^ Lions and tigers,' he
said, ^ are not so bad, for they do no evil to those that
nourish them.' It was therefore calculated to render
GROWTH OF SUPERSTITION. 113
the Protestant cause still more unpopular that it num-
bered some thousands of the nobility in its ranks.
The wretchedness of the people may be further seen
in the fact that at this time the worship of the devil
prevailed in many parts of France.^
This return to the darkest paganism had been
known during the Middle Ages^ coming into greater or
less prominence according to the misery or happiness
of the times. It now appeared in forms less brutal,
but mingled with insincerity, jugglery, and sacrilegious
trickery. This long fighting, this murdering in the
name of God and the Church, had destroyed faith ;
and supposed Catholics parodied in these demoniacal
convocations the rites of the Church, mimicking
baptism, the elevation of the host, the consecration of
priests, etc.
The superstition that prevailed everywhere is beyond
conception. In the convents there were scenes of
dark and mystic wickedness, which at times broke
out into great and all-absorbing scandals. Even the
Calvinists, whose habit of mind freed them perhaps
more than any other religionists from mysticism, were
not absolutely proof against the tendency of the
times.
Thus Agrippa d'Aubigne relates, apparently be-
lieving it, the miracle of an old woman of seventy
receiving power to suckle an infant left in her charge ;
and he himself had in his house a deaf and dumb
man who was able to give information concerning
events past and future. This ^ mute monster,^ to use
the descriptive title of the narrative, foretold that the
^ The importance of this in any complete understanding of
the misery of the poor at this period, may be judged from the
fact that Michelet has devoted four chapters in his history of
France to the terrible superstition prevailing in the reign of
Louis XIII.
H
114 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
king would die in three years and a half, with the
attendant circumstances ; also that La Rochelle would
be besieged and would fall, that its fortifications would
be dismantled, and that both the city and the Protes-
tant party would be ruined.
V.
A Last Effort at Keconciliation.
The Huguenots, however, were still a great political
power. About the year 1600 there were 760 parishes
in their possession, 4,000 of the nobility were Calvinists,
they held 200 fortified places, and it was believed that
they could put 25,000 men in the field. They were
then, in fact, well organized, both religiously and
politically. It is evident, however, that some of the
more thoughtful among them began to doubt if this
sort of thing was any real strength to a cause which
they had believed was_ that of the kingdom of heaven.
This probably explains their division into two parties,
the enthusiasts and the moderate, the zealous and the
timid. At any rate, some of the most enlightened
among them were prepared to make the greatest
sacrifices rather than continue a system which they
felt must end in their ruin.
In the last year of Henry the Fourth^s reign, three
months before his death, seven pastors met in Paris
at the house of Pierre Dumoulin, the minister of
the temple at Charenton. One of the company was
Daniel Chamier, a man of great learning, and whose
zeal in the Protestant cause is undoubted, for he was
killed on the ramparts during the siege of Montauban.
These seven pastors deputed Agrippa d^Aubigne, who
happened to arrive at the time, to go to the king and
tell him that in order to end all these troubles the
D'AUBIGNE'S PROPOSALS. 115
Calvinists would agree to accept a reform of the Churcli
which would restore it to what it was at the end
of the fourth century and at the commencement of the
following.
Henry sent D'Aubigne to Cardinal Duperron, who
had just returned from Rome_, where they had tried to
poison him, and who consequently was in an unusually
favourable mood for such a proposition. He received
D^Aubigne with a kiss on both cheeks_, and proceeded
to lament the miseries of Christendom_, asking if there
were no means of doing some good. D^Aubigne did
not reply at first, but being further pressed, he said
that Guicciardini had pointed out the way to proceed
when he said, referring to the Church as well as the
State, that good institutions which had descended to a
people from their ancestors should be reformed from
time to time by being led back to their first institution :
'We therefore propose to you, resting as you do on
antiquity, to accept for immutable law the constitutions
of the Church as established and observed in the fourth
century ; and each side pointing out what they con-
sider corrupt, you beginning, as the elder, it shall be
reformed according to this standard.^ The cardinal
cried out that the Calvinist ministers would disavow
such a proposition; but on being assured that they
would agree to it, he remained pensive some time, and
then said, ' Give us forty years more.' D'Aubigne
replied that, if the general proposition were accepted,
they would agree to fifty when the subject came on
for discussion. But then said the cardinal, ' You would
have to agree to the elevation of the cross, and you
dare not do that.' D'Aubigne intimated that for the
sake of peace this would be accepted, but retorting on
the cardinal, he said, ' You would not dare to accept
our first demand, which would be to put the authority
of the pope where it Avas at the end of the fourth
ii6 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
century. No/ he continued, ' you would not dare to
do that, even if we gave you two hundred years more.''
The cardinal replied, ' We must do this at Paris, even
if they would not do it at Rome/
Three months after, the knife of Ravaillac cut the
thread of this hopeful negotiation, and the Jesuits more
and more got the upper hand.
VI.
Persecution Recommences.
Elie Benoit relates that the bailiff of a certain village
was requested by the cure to compel a locksmith, whose
shop was opposite the church, to leave off singing. As
the man took no notice of the first summons, the ser-
geant came and, with every legal form, repeated the
order. It was necessary that the officer should write
the locksmith^s answer, but the man said he had nothing
to reply. ' I must put something,^ said the sergeant.
' Oh, well, put then :
" Jamais ne cesseray
De magnifier le Seigneur;
En ma bouclie auray son lionneur
Tant que vivaut seray."^ ^
This incident was one of the results of the law of
1626, forbidding Huguenots to sing psalms in the
street or in their shops. After the assassination of
Henry IV. (1610), a persecution began, often very
small, but perpetual. The Calvinists were attacked in
their various rights. The magistracy, mostly Galilean,
strove to prove their loyalty to Catholicism by render-
* Ps. cxlvi. 2, In our version : * While I live will I praise
the Lord ; I will sing praises unto my God while I have any
beinc.'
PERSECUTION RECOMMENCES. 117
ing tlie mixed chambers a farce. Huguenots were not
allowed to enter a hospital to console a sick brother,
or to hold their schools within the cities, or even in the
suburbs of episcopal towns.
In the States-General of 1614, a demand had been
made for the prosecution of Huguenots who prevented
their children from being Catholics. The next thing
was to carry them off and shut them up in convents.
Huguenots could not take a corpse to be buried with-
out being pursued with cries and insults. Henry IV.
had known how to keep these barbarities in check ;
but now the authorities only moved when some very
great commotion occurred. At Tours, the cry being
raised that the Huguenots had killed a child, the people
rose and burnt the temple, and dug up a body just
interred, dragged it over the road, and tore it to pieces.
The same scene was repeated at Poitiers, at Mauze,
and at Croisic. Henceforth the Protestants were
obliged to bury their dead at night, a proceeding
which obtained for them the name of j)ar^aillois —
night-moths.
VVhile these things filled the Protestants with dejec-
tion, the reformed monastic orders displayed a jubilant
energy. In Poitou and Languedoc the Huguenots
were very numerous. The Capuchins covered these
two provinces with their missions. The Franciscans
claimed marvellous triumphs in the south-west, also
a stronghold of Protestantism. Father Yillele, of
Bordeaux, was said to have brought almost the whole
town of Foix to Catholicism, and to have converted
the very man, now more than a hundred years old,
who had led into Foix the first Protestant preacher,
sent there by Calvin. The Jesuits were everywhere
making extraordinary progress and winning golden
opinions by their fraternities of the Virgin, who nursed
the sick and wounded in the war. The Catholic
ii8 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Churcli Lad iu fact completely imbibed their spirit^
aud tlie work of conversion was pnslied on by every
means^ fair or foul.
VII.
Going down to Egypt for Help.
Habit^ wo know, is a second nature^ and forty years'
more or less fighting had made recourse to the sword
only too natural. Thus some of the Huguenot pastors
were among the most ready for violent measures.
Pierre Beraud published, in 1626_, a famous tract, in
which he taught that ministers of religion might carry
arms and shed blood. Sentiments of this kind brought
them naturally into union with the turbulent nobility,
whom it is difficult to credit with much better motives
than the maintenance of their own position and the
aggrandisement of their family. The more powerful
among them professed themselves to be the champions
of the Huguenots, using the influence they thus ob-
tained for their own advancement.
In 1611, the nobility of the Dauphine attempted
to get the entire management of Protestant aSairs
in that district. ^ As to the synod belongs the direc-
tion of ecclesiastical affairs, to us,^ they said, ' belongs
the direction of political affairs. '' Their aim, or at
least their tendency, was always to an aristocratic
republic.
And this belief in the advantage of fighting under
the ^gis of some powerful nobleman was so ingrained
in the Huguenots that it came to be a sort of sacred
tradition that the Reformed Churches must have a pro-
tector at court. Under this fatal notion the Huguenots,
a few years after the death of Henry IV., accepted as
their leader a bigoted Catholic, whose interest in
TREASON OF THE PRINCE DE CONDE. 119
their cause was that for the momeut it assisted his
projects. The Prince de Conde, the representative of
the younger branch of the Bourbons, made himself, in
1614, the mouthpiece of all the grievances in the king-
dom ; among other things he complained that the Edict
of Nantes was not observed. He and his friends made
themselves so dangerous that the court bought them.
Conde received 450,000 livres for the expenses he had
been at, the Duke o£ Longueville a pension of 100,000
livres, the Duke of Mayenne 100,000 livres and the
reversion of the government of Paris, the Duke of
Bouillon other pecuniary advantages. The latter was
a Protestant.
This movement having proved so advantageous,
Conde soon issued another manifesto, in which he ap-
pealed for support to the Gallicans and the Huguenots.
He wrote to the Protestant assembly at Grenoble, and
that body, not only welcomed his advances, but begged
the court to listen to his remonstrances, to declare the
majority of the king, and bring to justice those who
had murdered Henry IV. Condons army was directed
by the Protestant Duke of Bouillon, and the Grenoble
assembly transferred itself to Nimes, where, by the
intervention of the Duke of Kohan,^ who had joined
the prince, a treaty was concluded in September, 1615,
between the assembly and their Catholic leader. The
duke also obtained the adherence of his father-in-law.
Sully, the great finance minister of Henry IV.
Conde, however, signed a truce the following January,
^ Henri de Eohan, the represeutabive of one of the chief
families in France, was the son of an heroic mother, whose
devotion to the Reformation places her among that list of
heroines which is one of the real glories of France. The
duke himself was the most earnest and sincere of all the war-
like leaders of the time. He was a partisan leader of the
highest order.
120 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
and commenced to negotiate. The assembly having
transferred itself to La Rochelle, resolutely stood out
for its own conditions. The prince^ however, ignored
its pretensions, and signed a peace, saying, ' Those who
will not do as I shall be made to do it/ Thus the
Huguenots got no advantage for all their efforts beyond
a confirmation of the privileges they already enjoyed,
and a declaration that when the king, in his coronation
oath, swore to extirpate heretics, it did not refer to
his subjects of the Reformed religion living under
the protection of his edicts. Conde, on the other
hand, was to have one million and a half livres for his
expenses ; altogether Richelieu reckoned that this war
cost the king six millions, and the country twenty
millions more. The advantage Conde obtained for the
people was the re-establishment of the salt tax, sup-
pressed in 1610. Well might they say, ^ What have
we to do with the quarrels of the great ? Let them
settle it among themselves, we will not mix ourselves
up with it. We know too well how they treat their
friends.'
VIII.
Jesuit Coup d^Etat in Bearn.
The drama proceeds with all the certainty of a decree
of predestination. The royal power is bound to attain
the unification of the country and the suppression of
everything dangerous to its authority; the Jesuits
cannot rest in the counter-Reformation which at this
moment was just reaching its crisis, all being ready
for the springing of the mine and the storming and
capture of the citadel. The Calvinists, on the other
hand, were everywhere arriving at their final goal.
Geneva and the Netherlands were already republics ;
BE ARM DECLARED CATHOLIC. 121
the Protestauts of England, France, and even Germany,
were nearer the same form of government than they
imagined. A collision between the two forces was
inevitable, and the resnlt was equally inevitable. The
party which everywhere, and by every means, was
growing weaker, must yield to the party which every-
where, and by every means, was growing stronger ; the
weakest must go to the wall.
The first blow was struck in France. When Beam
became Protestant, the ecclesiastical property was
used to support the Reformed faith. However, the
Catholic clergy did not cease to claim it, though the
government was deaf to their complaints, fearing the
resentment of the Huguenots, who regarded Beam as
a second Geneva. But now the time had come ; the
Jesuit Cotton, the friend of De Sales, gave place to a
more violent type of his society, the Jesuit Arnoux,
who induced Louis the Thirteenth's minister, the Duke
of Luynes, to issue a decree establishing the Catholic
religion in Beam. The decree was to take effect in
September, 1617. The commotion excited was great.
A Protestant assembly met at Orthes, and was sup-
ported by the Parliament at Pau, who declared such
a change could not be made without its consent. The
Orthes assembly obtained the convocation of a general
assembly at LaRochelle, which met in December, 1617.
This proceeding, opposed by the politicians, was sup-
ported by the pastors.
Intestine warfare in the court delayed for a time
the conclusion of the royal work in the Beam ; the
queen-mother was struggling against the favourite,
Luynes. Unfortunately the Huguenots, indignant
with Luynes, allowed themselves to be drawn into
supporting Marie de Medici. A surprise at Les
Ponts de Ce routed her party, and the court made up
their quarrels^ leaving the Huguenots in the attitude
122 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
of rebels. The king ufc once proceeded against Bearn^
wliere lie made an easy entry, owing to the discord of
its two factions of Beaumont and of Grammont. He
compelled the Parliament of Pan to register the
decree returning the ecclesiastical property to the
Catholic clergy, and at the same time united Beam
and Lower Navarre to the kingdom of France (Oct.,
1620).
The passage of the royal troops was marked by
many outrages against the ^ cursed religion/ as they
named the Reformed faith. The temples were burst
open, and the tables on which the commandments were
written pulled down. The peasants were beaten, the
Reformed compelled to make the sign of the cross
and kneel down as the host passed. All this was done
under the king's eyes ; elsewhere the soldiers did as
they liked. The king, they said, had given them leave
to pillage the Huguenots. They drove away the
pastors, outraged the women, and forced the people to
mass by aid of a cudgel. It was the first symptom of
the Dragonnades.
IX.
The Huguenot Commonwealth at La Rochelle.
The Protestants throughout the kingdom saw in these
tyrannical proceedings the coming despotism in
Church and State ; and in the general assembly which
met at La Rochelle in 1621, the party called ^the
zealous ' predominated. Under their impulse the
assembly planned a complete organization of Protes-
tant Prance. The aristocratic leaders held aloof, but
the ^ zealous ^ accused them of desertion, and threat-
ened to give them up as leaders. De Rohan, stung with
this reproach, united himself to the assembly, and so
THE ASSEMBLY AT LA ROCHELLE. 123
did his brother, Soubise ;■'• other noblemen soon fol-
lowed.
■ The king advanced towards the Loire in April,
1621, backed in the war he was about to wage by the
clergy of the Roman Chnrch. The pope offered two
hundred thousand crowns on condition the Huguenots
Avere brought, willingly or unwillingly, into the fold of
the Church; the cardinals off'ered a similar sum, and
the priests a million.
To the edict which the king launched against the
assembly, it replied by a manifesto in which it justi-
fied the war, and by a plan orga,nizing Protestant
France under military leaders. This organization,
though it never got as a whole beyond paper, is very
important, as marking the extreme point to which the
Huguenots arrived politically ; and although they kept
up the form of doing all ^ under very humble subjec-
tion to the king given by God,^ it is clear that they
were on the same road as that which, a few years later,
led the English Puritans to a commonwealth.
Protestant France was to be divided into eight
military governments, each under the rule of a com-
mander appointed by the assembly, the whole to be
directed by a general-in- chief. This general was to
have a council composed of the lords of his army and
three deputies from the assembly. Each commander
was to have a council of lords, with three deputies
from the provincial assembly of his district. The
general assembly reserved to itself the right of making
peace. The resources of the war were to be obtained
from the royal and ecclesiastical goods. The discipline
^ The Duke of Soubise always did as his brother, until the fiual
ruin of the Protestants as a political party, when he fled to
England, where he died in 16i2, and was buried in Westmin-
ster Abbey by order of Charles I.
124 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
and morality of the troops were to be preserved by the
presence of pastors attached to the armies, and by the
rigid exclusion of all women. A map of the arrange-
ment would give some idea of the great inequality of the
divisions of the numbers of the Protestants in diflferent
parts of the country. In a general way it may be
said that they were strong in the west^ the south,
and the south-east ; but weak in the north, north-east,
and central France ; and it is much the same in the
present day. La Rochelle and Montauban were their
strongest places. The first the assembly kept under
its own control, and that of the magistrates of the
city. Montauban was committed to their most trusty
lieutenant, the Duke of Rohan.
The Protestants met with a series of misfortunes.
Bouillon and Lesdiguieres refused their commands, the
latter entering the royal army. Saumur was taken
by a fraud out of the hands of Duplessis-Mornay ;
La Force was driven from Beam ; St. Jean d'Angely,
called the bulwark of La Rochelle, was taken in three
weeks ; the Protestant fortresses were delivered up by
their governors ; in Lower Guienne all the Protestant
towns except Clairac opened their gates to the royal
army, and that town was taken in twelve days, its
consuls and a pastor being hanged.
The conquering army was at last stopped by Mon-
tauban. The siege commenced the 18th of August,
1621, and continued two months and a half. The tliie
of the French nobility accompanied the king ; but no
impression was made, and the bad season coming on
they had to raise the siege and go home. The
evening before^ a Huguenot soldier in the royal army
began to play on his flute the commencement of
the Huguenot battle hymn, the sixty-eighth psalm.
The besieged city heard the musical message, and
comprehended that their deliverance was at hand.
SIEGE OF LA ROCHE LLE RAISED. 125
Aud the reader will the better understand how that
flute did all that science can do by telegraph cypher,
telegram, or telephone, and what was the secret in-
spiration of the Huguenot resistance, if we venture
on a literal translation of the first words of the para-
phrase :
' Let God only arise, and suddenly will be seen
The enemy's camp break up to abandon the place.
And His haters flying in all parts before His face.
God will make them all fly away,
As one sees fade into nothing
A cloud of smoke ;
As wax before the fire,
So the strength of the wicked
Is consumed before the Lord.'^
X.
Huguenot Learning and Methods of Education.
{First half of til c seventeenth centunj.)
In the midst of all this turmoil, side by side with
these spurred and booted warriors, we see everywhere
learned and thoughtful students. Unfortunately, much
of this learning was spent on controversial theology,
the famous Synod of Dort (1618-1G19) having, by its
forcible suppression of the followers of Arminius,
greatly accentuated Protestant divisions. Several of
the Dutch Arminians fled to France, where they found
sympathisers among the Huguenots. However, at
least two of the most eminent among the pastors,
Dumoulin and Rivet, were Calvinists of the severer
type.
Pierre Dumouliu (1568-1658) was saved from the
^ See Appendix.
126 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
massacre of Sfc. Bartliolomew, a child four years of age.
At thirty-one he became pastor of Charenton. In
1621 he was driven by the Jesuits from Paris, and
took refuge at Sedan. Amongst his principal writ-
ings were a Defence of the Reformed Churches of
France, TJie Buckler of the Faith, and Tlie Anatomy
of ilie Mass. Dumoulin lived to be ninety years of
age. The joy with which he quitted life, while it
proves his ardent piety, suggests also the depressing
nature of the conflict in which he had borne a leading
part. ^ Oh, how good you are ! ' he said to those who
told him he was going to die. '^Kind Death, how
welcome thou art ! How happy shall I be to see my
God, to whom I have so long aspired ! '
Andre Rivet (1572-1651) was a leading man at this
time, presiding in 1617 at the national synod held at
Vitre. He quitted France in 1619, and became a
professor of theology in Holland. He wrote an Intro-
duction to the Study of the Bible, in which he rests
Biblical criticism on grammar and philology rather
than on allegorical interpretation.
John Cameron (1579-1625), a Scotchman by birth,
was first pastor at Bordeaux, and then succeeded
Gomar, the great defender of extreme Calvinism, as
professor of theology at Saumur. He was, however,
of another school, and even attacked the writings of
Theodore de Beza. Cameron was much honoured, the
national synod of Castres voting a pension to his
children as a mark of respect to his memory.
Daniel Chamier (1565-1621) was one of the most
powerful spirits the Huguenots possessed. He dis-
puted with Cotton, wrote with force and acumen
against Bellarmine, and was president of the national
synod of Privas, which refused to accept either pardon
or amnesty from Marie de Medici (161o). His willing-
ness to make great ecclesiastical concessions shows the
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY HUGUENOTS. 127
breadtli and humanity of his learning ; his inflexible
and courageous adherence to the Protestant cause^
and at all risks, shows the rock-like character of the
man. ' He was/ says Bayle, ^ as odious to authority
as he was dear to the Churches.' He was killed by a
cannon ball on the ramparts of Montauban (1021),
where he went every day to encourage and exhort the
soldiers.^
Benjamin Basnage (1580-1652), Garissoles (1587-
1650), and Jean Mestrezat (1562-1657), all appear to
have been men of courage and zealous for the cause.
Mestrezat was appointed pastor of Charenton when
quite a youth. In an audience he had with Louis
XIII., Eichelieu asked him how it was the Protestants
had pastors who were not French. 'It is much to
be wished,' said Mestrezat, ' that many of the Italian
monks now in France had as much zeal for his
majesty as these foreign pastors, who recognise no
other sovereign than the king.' Richelieu struck him
on the shoulder, saying, ' Here is the boldest minister
in France.'
The Huguenot pastors of this time were men of
great learning. Louis Cappel (1586-1658), professor
at Saumur, was one of the first Hebrew scholars of the
age. Samuel Petit (1594-1643) was a profound orien-
talist. He occupied in 1627, at Nimes, the three
professorships of theology, Greek, and Hebrew. One
day he heard a rabbi denouncing Christianity in
Hebrew, and, without any resentment, immediately
replied in Hebrew, exhorting the rabbi to study better
the faith he attacked. A cardinal offered to get him
admission into the Vatican library, and to entrust him
with a review of the manuscripts; but he declined,
^ One of the last of Chamier's descendants was returned
member of Parliament for Tam worth in 1772.
128 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
fearing that it miglit cost him liberty of conscience.
He was of a gentle, peacefal disposition, adverse to all
controversy, a good type of ^ the moderate ^ in Hugue-
not politics.
This learning was fostered and encouraged by a
number of academies scattered freely over France.
Sedan, in the north-east, Saumur, in the north-west
(1599), Montauban, towards the south-west (1598),
Die, in the Dauphine (1604), Montpellier (1598), and
Nimes (1561), to the south, were all centres of learn-
ing, well supplied with professors, and a body of
students, who passed through a course of eloquence,
philosophy, and theology, and more or less instruction
in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. They played a great
part in Protestant education in France, and were not
confined to students in theology, though no doubt the
education of a learned and orthodox ministry was
their supreme object. For the pulpit occupied during
the first two centuries after the Reformation a place in
Protestant Europe only paralleled in a few exceptional
cases, and at rare intervals, in anterior history.
Candidates were proposed and examined at the
sitting of the provincial synods, and, if accepted, they
were required to sign the confession of faith. They
preached before the synod on being proposed, and
again at the close of their course, as students in
theology ; and, if finally approved, they were ordained,
either at a consistory or in a synod. The candidate
knelt, while one of the leading ministers addressed
him on the duties of the pastorate, after which some
of the pastors present laid hands upon him. The
officiating minister then gave him the right hand of
fellowship, and the Sunday following he preached his
entrance sermon.
As the limits of each Church were those of its town
or district, there were frequently several pastors
HUGUENOT RITUAL. 129
attached to the same Church. Ou Sunday _, there were
three sermons preached by three different pastors. A
liturgy was used, which permitted the minister, after
reading" an exhortation and confession, to occupy the
greater part of the service in free prayer and preach-
ing. Chanting the psalms was a very important
feature in the service, which concluded with a long
prayer from the formulary. On Wednesdays there
was a short service, consisting mainly of an exhorta-
tion, the rest of the service being accommodated to
circumstances.
The pastors were assisted by elders and deacons,
chosen by the consistories with the assent of the
people. The office of the former was, with the pastors,
to watch over the people, to cause them to assemble,
to make known scandals to the pastors ', also to watch
over the pastors and deacons, especially to maintain
purity of doctrine in the former. The deacons had the
care of the poor, and with the elders gave notice of
the communion, which was done by leaving a little
lead ticket at the dwelling of each person entitled to
be present.
The Communion of the Lord's Supper was celebrated
at a long table, some of the elders presiding; the
deacons cut up bread, which the ministers distributed,
and also the wine. If any one had an invincible re-
pugnance to wine he was not expected to take more
than the bread. The supper was administered first to
the men, then to the women, the pastors sitting at a
table on a raised dais. The communion commenced
with an address on its nature and meaning and the
duties of the participants ; while it proceeded, a lay-
man, often an artisan, but generally the schoolmaster,
read passages from the Bible, and caused psalms to
be sung.
As the Lord's Supper was regarded as another form
I
130 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
of preaching the Gospel, aud an act of fellowship
among believers, so baptism meant nothing more than
reception into the Church. The service of infant
baptism, as practised in 1566, considerably softens the
severity of Calvinist doctrine, since it saj's that Christ
did not come to diminish the grace of God, but that
all circumcision was under the Old Testament baptism
is under the New, implying that as the Jews were elect
for their fathers' sake, so among Christians there was
also an election of families. This at least was the
impression the service must have conveyed.
French Calvinism regarded the education of its
little children in Christian doctrine as of the highest
importance. It was customary to collect them in the
temples and teach them a catechism, which was an
exposition of the Apostles^ Creed, the Ten Command-
ments, and the Lord's Prayer. As taught in the
middle of the sixteenth century, prior to the massacre
of St. Bartholomew, it is a most interesting document,
by no means hard, narrow, or unintelligent.
The Eeformed Churches of France were from the
very first of the same mind as those of Germany and
Switzerland with regard to the education of the
people, for they devoted a whole chapter of their
^ Discipline ' to the subject.
But it was not until after the Edict of Nantes that
they were able to carry into effect the article of their
' Discipline ^ which said : ' The Churches shall make
it a duty to raise schools and to give orders that the
young people be instructed.''
In the project of the Edict, in 593, it was agreed
that the Reformed might build and rent colleges for
the instruction of their youth, and the Edict ex-
pressly permitted them to ^hold public schools,' in
places where the exercise of their religion was re-
cognised, and to provide by special legacies for
LOUIS XIIL 131
the support of the scholars belonging to their
religion.
Each Church had a regent or schoolmaster to teach
reading and arithmetic to the children^ and in centres
of importance there was a second regent^ who taught
the elements of Latin. At the beginning of the
seventeenth century the salary of the first order of
schoolmaster in these primary schools was fifty livres
a year, which rose sometimes to nearly a hundred
or even two hundred livres, to which was added the
contributions of the richer pupils, not generally
numerous. The schoolmasters who taught Latin
received from one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and forty livres per annum, and the pupils paid from
ten to fifteen sous a month. These salaries were fixed
by the consistories. The instruction given was in
reality nearly gratuitous.
XL
Louis XIIL and Eichelieu.
The war recommenced in 1622. Lonis XIIL hauo-ed
or sent to the galleys every prisoner taken. This so
intimidated the Protestants that they fell away in vast
numbers ; and some of their chiefs, unaccustomed to
such exterminatory warfare, made their peace with the
king. At Negrepelisse, a little town near Montauban,
the king struck a blow intended to terrorise. In
half an hour every inhabitant was murdered, women
flying with children in their arms found no mercy, the
streets were choked with the dead, and running with
blood. Those who fled into the castle surrendered
next day at discretion, and were all hanged. At
Toulouse the royal captains and great lords, the
Prince de Conde, etc., etc., with six hundred gentle-
132 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
men took the communion together, some even joined
the Confraternity of the Blue Penitents.^
However, the royal army was stopped this time at
Montpellier, and towards the middle of October the
king agreed with Rohan to articles of peace. The
Edict of Nantes was confirmed, religious assemblies
permitted, but no political assembly was to be held
without the king^s express permission. Montpellier
was to be dismantled. La Rochelle and Montauban were
still to remain fortifi.ed places. Finally the Protestant
leader, the Duke of Rohan, received a mortgage of
600,000 livres on the Duchy of Valois, and another
sum in ready money of 200,000 livres ; his pensions
were re-established as well as those of his brother.
This treaty was but a stopping to take breath j the
drama had an inevitable end. The authorities and the
people, animated without doubt by the general in-
fluence working through Europe, irritated the Protes-
tants by persistent petty persecutions, disturbing them
in their religious worship, depriving them of their
temples, taking from them their cemeteries and dis-
interring their dead; beating, wounding, and driving
the pastors away from the churches, compelling them
in their synods to deliberate in the presence of a royal
official. The more zealous among the Huguenots,
moved not only by these things, but also by their
sympathies with the great currents of feeling surging
in Germany and England, were ready at every oppor-
tunity to draw the sword. A partisan warfare raged
in Languedoc under Rohan and his brother Soubise.
The flame flickered and died down, then rose again ;
but the greater part of the Huguenot people refused
to arm. In vain did Rohan denounce their indiffer-
^ The same wl)0 had formerly induced tLe Huguenots to
support his rebellion*
RICHELIEU'S ' TESTAMENT POLITIQUE: 133
ence, cupidity, venality; it was of no avails sometliing
seemed to tell them the struggle v/as liopeless. And
so it was, for a man had arisen who had sworn to
ruin the Huguenot party, a man who possessed the
ability to do all he determined. In his Testament
Politique, Cardinal Richelieu gives the picture he put
before Louis XEII. of the condition of France in 1624.
' I can truly say/ he tells the king, ^ that the Hugue-
nots share the State with the State, that the grandees
conduct themselves as if they were not its subjects,
and the more powerful governors of provinces as if
they were themselves their sovereigns. ... I pro-
mise your majesty to employ all my industry, and all
the authority it may please you to give me, to ruin the
Huguenot party, to lower the pride of the grandees,
to reduce all your majesty's subjects to their duty,
and to cause your name to be respected in foreign
countries as it ought to be.' And on determining to
attack and subjugate the Protestant citadel, La Rochelle,
Richelieu saw he should attain all these ends. This
is why he took so profound an interest in the siege,
commanding in person, and directing all things as a
general in the field.
XIT.
The Siege op La Rochelle.
On the western coast of France, facing the Atlantic,
stood La Rochelle, long the most independent city in
France. Its privileges had been granted by Eleanor
of Aquitaine, wife of Edward IL, and had been ac-
knowledged iDy Louis XI. Its inhabitants, numbering
in 1625 28,000 souls, governed themselves by means
of 100 magistrates, consisting of a mayor, twenty-four
sheriffs, and seventy-five peers. They had their own
troops, a marine, a treasury, and very extensive rights
134 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
of jurisdiction. Intelligent, industrious, excellent
sailors, they were rich and prosperous.
In 1557, the Reformation commenced in La Rochelle.
It soon won the city, which thus became the Calvinist
stronghold. It was in fact a Protestant republic, to
which every one fled who had energy, courage, and
was uncompromisingly Calvinistic. This indomitable
seat of liberty Richelieu determined to conquer. He
came attended by the king, and by various generals
and engineers, by three militant bishops, who, career-
ing about the camp on horseback, acted as his lieu-
tenants.
There were no means of conquering the place except
by starvation. But how starve a great maritime town
that looked out on the sea, and was promised the
succour of the Enghsh fleet ? The cardinal deter-
mined to build across the harbour an immense dyke,
or rather two, which very nearly met, the opening
being dominated by a great fort. The generals
laughed, did not believe it possible, possibly they did
not want La Rochelle to fall; for that gone, even
Catholic noblemen might expect to be eaten alive by
this ecclesiastical monster. It was certainly not from
the Huguenots that the cry subsequently arose, ^ No
more priest-generals.''
However, the cardina?s engineers set to work, and
in six months the dyke was constructed. Meanwhile
Buckingham came and went, and the Rochellois saw
nothing could be done but to endure to the uttermost.
They elected for their mayor an old sailor, named
Guitou. He refused the ofiice, but when they per-
sisted, he took out a dagger, and laying it on the
council chamber of the town hall, said, ^ The man
who proposes we surrender, I plunge this into his
heart.^
Three times an English fleet appeared in front of
SIEGE OF LA ROCHELLE. 135
the towD, for the English Parliament was determined
at every cost to succour La Rochelle. But each time
the expediton was a failure^ and so the Rochellois
looked in vain for supplies. At last they ate boiled
leather, and a cat sold for forty-five livres. Indeed,
it is related that a man kept his child alive for a week
by blood drawn from his own veins. E-educed to the
last extremity, they decided to drive out all the poor,
all the infirm, all widows and old and helpless people.
This band of miserable outcasts were received by the
hostile camp with a volley of musketry. They re-
turned in despair to the city, whose pitiless gates were
barred. They fell into the trench, and here, for a
morsel of bread, the women endured the last extremity
of dishonour from the soldiers of a prince of the
Church and of the most Christian king. What a sight
for the angels was this end of a religious war ! Two
sets of militant Christians, both animated by their
respective ministers, drive backwards and forwards
the very people whom Jesus Christ most loved — drive
them to a death the most horrible, the most despairful
it is possible to imagine.
After this La Rochelle was bound to fall ; it was only
a question of time. Yet the stubborn city refused
every offer ; it knew that this was the end. At last,
when the third English fleet had failed to relieve them,
it became clear the defence was hopeless, and they gave
way. When Richelieu entered there were only 12,000
living out of 28,000. He ordered the corpses to be
cleared away, the streets cleansed, and the principal
temple to be made the cathedral. Then, on the 1st of
November, 1628, this minister of Jesus Christ, this
prince in His so called Church, performed the miracle
of the mass. The king entered the same evening, and
a Jesuit very appropriately celebrated the Feast of the
Dead. To this feast came a long line of ravening birds.
136 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
who fastened and fattened on the dead carcase of Pro-
testant Eochelle. It was the final scene^ and Richelieu_,
knowing all was over, behaved with a magnanimity
towards the conquered worthy of the genius and per-
severance he had displayed.
But, whatever the benefit to France of this great
feat, the locality was permanently ruined. Two hun-
dred and fifty years after the event the Poitevin
peasant is fanatic and superstitious as the Bretons
themselves. Catholic Rochelle is still to be seen with
almost one- third less inhabitants to-day than it had
in 1627. The cardinals dyke is still there, but the
insects have seized on the city. A plague of white
ants, imported from India, have fastened on its timbers,
and especially infect the Prefecture and the Arsenal.
The city built on a rock was to stand, but that which
makes ought else its foundation is doomed to fall.
The Protestant Churches of France had in the fall of
La Rochelle a terrible but a just lesson. ' He that
taketh the sword shall perish by the sword."*
XIII.
The End of Political Peotestantism.
Richelieu celebrated his success over Protestantism
by a pagan triumph at Paris, in which, in accordance
with the allegorical taste of the age, Louis XIII. was
represented as Jupiter Stator, holding in his hand a
gilded thunderbolt ; a representation less open to
ridicule than such exhibitions often were, because it
expressed the truth about the situation and the car-
dinal's policy. He was really making Louis XIII.
the founder of a new order of things, and though he
caused his Jove to launch thunderbolts, he did his best
to have them gilded.
THE DUKE OF ROHAN. 137
Notwithstanding the general impulsion towards
national unity^ a section of the Protestants were still
Calvinistic enough to desire a separate existence.
Their leader was the Duke of Rohan, a man who in
this corrupt and vacillating age led a pure and earnest
life, and in whom the old Haguenot spirit burnt
strongly, as it did in his aged mother, a woman
of gi-eat courage, fortitude, and constancy. Rohan
bitterly denounced the refusal of his co-religionists
to continue the struggle for a cause which was the
only barrier to the incoming despotism. To obtain
the means to carry it on, he went so far as to con-
clude a treaty with Spain, by which in exchange for
a subsidy of 300,000 ducats and a pension, he agreed
to maintain the war as long as the King of Spain
willed, and if peace was made to recommence it if
Spain so determined ; while in the event of his suc-
ceeding to the extent of his being able to establish a
State apart from France, he agreed to grant liberty
of conscience to all Catholics, and to preserve all
monks and nuns in the possession of their property,
honours, and dignities.
To understand Rohan we must not only regard him
as the last representative of the old political and of the
new religious independence, but we must remember
that the great Thirty Years' War had begun, and that
Europe was really divided into two camps : the one
fighting for Protestantism and individual and civic
liberty, the other for Catholicism and spiritual and
political despotism. When in this war we see James
I. entering into friendly relations with the repre-
sentatives of the Catholic party, and Pope Urban YIII.
wishing success to the Protestants, we do not blame
either of the two parties, but only those who sacrificed
great objects for their own personal ends ; so now it
is not Rohan, but Spain, that is the traitor.
138 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
The Huguenot leader was supported by a political
assembly convoked at Nimes ; but the Protestant cities
and towns in the South of France refused to obey its
injunctions^ and each made their own terms with the
king. Marching triumphantly through the Protestant
districts, the royal army came to Privas, an important
town in the mountainous district of the Vivarais_, and
near the Rhone,, which was held by some of the most
determined adherents of Rohan. The inhabitants fled
into the woods adjacent; all who were caught were put
to death or sent to the galleys. At the moment the
invading army entered the town an explosion took
place, whereupon eight hundred Huguenot soldiers
were slaughtered, and fifty of the citizens hanged, the
city being sacked and burnt.
Richelieu, it is said, was ill when Privas was taken ;
it was not his wont to treat the Huguenots cruelly, and
when those in arms finally submitted, he not only
included all in the amnesty, but made the king swear
once again to maintain the Edict of Nantes. There
was one point upon which he was inflexible : all forti-
fications were to be rased. Montauban, so long one
of the two great Protestant fortresses, demurred to
this j but when the Montalbanais heard that Richelieu
was marching against them, they yielded, and welcomed
him into the city to the cry of, ^ Vive le roi et le grand
cardinal ^ (Aug. 21st, 1629). The victor received even
the pastors courteously, telling them that in their
quality as subjects the king would make no difi'erence
between Protestants and Catholics.
Thus political Protestantism was finally ruined in
France, and a new era commenced.
THE HUGUENOTS APPLY TO THE STATE. 139
XIV.
Passing under the ^ Caudine Forks/
The Reformed Churclies of France miglifc have found
new streugtli in returning to tlieir normal state, but
they had been so long accustomed to look up to the
powerful of the earth for protection, that now their
leaders are all conquered and overthrown, they turn
instinctively to the victor for help, even going so far
as to request the royal bounty in support of their
ministers.
The Catholic clergy, by ages of experience having
learnt what it was to put their trust in princes, had
accumulated immense property, to which they clung
pertinaciously. Thus at the very time that Protestants
were begging a little pecuniary aid, the French clergy
were able to grant large sums of money to the king, —
dons gratuits, — benevolences, as they were called in
England. The result is obvious, the French Protes-
tant Church fell into being a servant of servants, it
became the tail of a State in which the Poman Catholic
clergy had supreme influence.
In this miserable position the Huguenots were open
to the cruel selfishness of a world which has nearly
always conceived might means right. As long as
their enemies dreaded the possibility of their ultimate
success, they treated them with some consideration ;
now they knew that they could do no more, they took
advantage after advantage. During the war, the
clergy had not been prominent as persecutors; but
now it had concluded in the final defeat of the Pro-
testants, they commenced an exterminatory attack
infinitely more difiicult to bear than a struggle which
meant a soldier's life, with all its hazards. A restless
militia of Jesuits and monks and friars was sent out
140 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
against tliem, who, by continually exciting the fana-
ticism of the populace, left the Huguenots no peace.
Their only earthly protector was the inscrutable
Richelieu, whose policy rendered him equally so of
Jesuits and Carmelites. As to the kings Louis XIII.
and Louis XIV., they learnt nothing from this great
statesman except that the Huguenots were a danger
to the royal authority, and that therefore it was
necessary to depress them. All the subordinate au-
thorities follow the evident bent of king and people.
No favour to the heretics, but perpetual injustice.
The intendants of the provinces, royal officials Avho
acted as provincial viceroys, took this line, and con-
stantly favoured the Jesuits against the pastors, and
the bishops against the synods. Tlie provincial Par-
liaments, assemblies of lawyers actuated by the same
spirit, easily made the balance of justice dip when
Huguenots were parties to a suit, or explained the law
with severity when they were cited for some infraction
of the penal code. It was the same with the uni-
versities and colleges, more or less dominated by
clerical influences. Thus the Huguenots, notwith-
standing the Edict of Nantes, were made to feel that
they would never be allowed their position in the
State until they submitted to its religion.
XV.
The Huguenot Pulpit and Protestant Art.
{Middle of tliG seventeenth centiirij.)
With so much in its favour, it is no wonder that the
religion of the State pursued the work of conversion
with energy. As few people like to be connected with
a sinking cause, the upper classes could safely be left to
THE HUGUENOT MINISTRY. 141
the force of the tide ; but the mass of the Huguenots_,
scattered iu more or less remote parts of the country,
would not realize so readily the ruin of the Church ;
for them therefore it was judged advisable to make
great missionary efforts.
The kind of men sent, however, proved that the
rulers of the Gallicau Church little understood the
genius of the Reformed Faith. Coarse, uneducated
persons ran all over the country, setting up at corners
of streets, or in crossways, tables with piles of books,
challenging the Huguenots to controversy. Some-
times they intruded into private houses, or even offered
to debate with the pastors.
But these ill-considered efforts met with little
success, for in being able to give a reason for the
faith that was in him, no religionist was ever better
instructed than the Huguenot.
Whatever were the shortcomings of the Protestant
ministry, it had always been faithful to the rule which
insisted on explaining to the people the principles of
their religion. No ministry perhaps ever so cultivated
the pulpit as a real source of power. They were
enjoined to be prudent and restrained in their preach-
ing, to abstain from digressions and amplifications, to
avoid uselessly heaping up passages of Scripture, and
that vain erudition which consists in stating a number
of different explanations of the text or passage. They
were urged not to indulge in violent and injurious
lana-uasre against the Roman Church, but to prevent
1*11 TT
and repress such language as much as possible. Upon
a people thus educated, the mere exertions of illiterate
controversialists were wasted.
A brief reference was made in a previous chapter to
the more distinguished pastors of the French Reformed
Churches during the first quarter of the seventeenth
century. The time has come to mention those who
142 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
were most prominent towards the middle of the
century.
When Louis XIV. came to the throne, in 1643,
Dumoulin, Basnage, Garissoles, and Mestrezat were still
living; Aubertin, Drelincourt, Daille_, Amyraut, De la
Place, Gaussin, and Bochart were in the prime of life.
Edme Aubertin (1595-1652) was the author of a
powerful work on the Eucharist, in which he sought
to prove that the doctrine of the Real Presence was
unknown during the first six centuries of the Christian
era.
Charles Drelincourt (1595-1669) achieved a renown
not permitted to the more learned efforts of some of
his contemporaries. His Consolations in Frosped of
Death was long a popular work. He wrote more for
edification than any other end, and his works were
regarded as very useful. His Summary of tJie Contro-
versies armed his co-religionists against the sophistries
of the converters, while his Preparations for the Lord's
Supper, and his Charitable Visits, show the practical
nature of his works.
Jean Daille (1595-1670) was of the same age as the
two former, and, like Aubertin, a man of solid eccle-
siastical learning. He was brought up in the house
of Duplessis-Mornay, and had travelled in all the
principal countries of Europe. His first tract was
entitled The Usage of the Fathers ; his opus magnum
was his Apology of the Beformed Cliurches, in which he
vindicates them from the charge of having broken the
unity of the Catholic Church. He was a most laborious
student, and might pass for the original of one of those
philosophers which his contemporary Rembrandt (1608-
1669) so often depicted, seated in a crypt-like kitchen,
deep in meditation, while his wife or servant prepared
his frugal morning meal.
Moise Amyraut (1596-1664), professor at Saumur,
LEARNED HUGUENOTS.
145
was the exponent of a doctrine which lay midway be-
tween that of the Calvinistic and the Arminian schools^
and which declared that the death of Jesus Christ was
sufficient for all men, but only efficacious for the elect.
Although he published a confession of faith in a sense
contrary to Arminianism, this moderate advance in
that direction rendered him open to the cliarge of
heterodoxy. However, his great reputation for learn-
ing and his amiable character enabled him to live
down this reproach> and in his later life he was one of
the most honoured Fathers of the Reformed Church.
During the last ten years of his life he bestowed the
whole of his salary on the poor without distinction of
religion. His literary industry must have been great,
as he published nearly forty works. It is not surprising
that such a man should have been esteemed by patrons
of learning like Richelieu and Mazarin.
One of Amyraut's colleagues at Saumur was Josue
de la Place (1596-1655), also a learned theologian. He
held views of his own on original sin, arguing that
while men bore the burden of Adam^s sin, they were
not as responsible as if they had personally committed
the transgression.
Samuel Bochart (1599-1667), whose researches on
the early peoples, places, and animals mentioned in
Scripture are quoted to this day in commentaries, was
a learned philologist, and much esteemed as pastor of
the Church at Caen, in which town he suddenly died
while speaking at the local Academy of Antiquaries.
Etienne Gaussin, a third professor at Saumur, and
Michel le Faucheur, left works on pulpit eloquence,
showing how much that art was then cultivated.
The temple at Charenton, near Paris, was as it were
the Protestant cathedral, and in its pulpit from time
to time appeared nearly all the more distinguished
Huguenot preachers in France.
K
146 THE REFORMATION IiV FRANCE.
This edifice, builfc by tlie Protestant architect
Debrosse, in 1606, was a grand quadrilateral, like an
ancient basilica, with three galleries one above another.
It was well lighted, for it had no less than eighty-one
windows. It could hold 14^000 persons, and must
have required a man of powerful voice to fill it. Its
exterior was very plain, no doubt the necessity of
surrounding it with a high wall caused the architect
to reserve himself for its interior, for Debrosse,
though austere in style, as befitted a Huguenot, was a
man of abilit}', as may be seen from the Palace of the
Luxembourg, of which he was the architect (1615-
]620). He also built the aqueduct of Arcueil, which
brought the water to Paris from the village of Rungis ;
a worthy worker, true to his interior life, comprehend-
ing instinctively that there could be no serious art in a
building of which the architecture was not in harmony
with its purpose.
Because some of the greatest works of art have been
produced in Roman Catholic countries, people take it
for granted that mediaeval Christianity was more
favourable to the birth of art than the Reformed Faith.
The great Dutch school of painting, contemporary with
the time now before us, shows that this is an unwar-
rantable assumption. The truth is, the existence of
art is not dependent on any form of faith ; whatever
is sincerely and intensely believed will attain some
artistic expression, its nature and degree being greatly
affected by climate, culture, and other circumstances.
But the finest climate and the utmost culture can-
not get art out of doubt, scepticism, or Jesuitised
religions.
In the joy of its new-found faith. Protestantism
gave to the most spiritual of all arts, music, a new
life and a marvellous development, comparable to
that which happened to painting in Catholic countries.
HUGUENOT ART. 147
tlirough tlie great movement connected with the names
of Francis and Dominic. But Protestantismj as this
great Dutch school proves^ not only became more than
the foster-mother of the art of music,, but the source
of a school which^ for interest, has no rival except
among the early Italians. The struggle for indepen-
dence, and the sufferings of the Anabaptists, were its
inspiration. If Protestant France cannot be compared
to Protestant Germany for music, or to Protestant
Holland for painting, it must be remembered that it
never succeeded in becoming more than a weak and
struggling minority, and that its early guides took
care not to allow the Anabaptist faith to make any
"way in its Churches. Nevertheless, its intense earnest-
ness could not fail, at the first favourable opportunity,
to develop artists. And the greatest among them
appeared when the springs of faith were most simply
evangelic. French Protestantism never excelled its
Palissy, its Goujon, and its Goudimel ; yet the line
goes on, and in the middle of this seventeenth century
there were quite a number of Huguenot artists.
The career of Sebastien Bourdon (1616-1G71) shows
the difficulties with which a Huguenot artist has to
contend. Born at Montpellier, he entered at seven
years of age the atelier of a painter in Paris named
Barthelemy. At fourteen he painted a ceiling in fresco
at a chateau near Bordeaux. He went to Toulouse,
but not being able to earn a living, enlisted; the
officer, however, seeing his talent, set him at liberty,
and he made his way to Rome. Here he existed by
making copies of the great masters for a furniture-
broker ; threatened, however, by another painter with
denunciation as a heretic, he fled from Rome and
returned to Paris, where he began to paint battle-
pieces, hunts, and landscapes. In 1605 he obtained
a commission from the Goldsmiths' Company to paint
148 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
a Crucifixion of Sfc. Peter. In 1648 he helped to
found the Academy of Painting, and was appointed a
professor. During the wars of the Fronde he went
to Sweden, and was employed by Queen Christina.
He returned to Paris, where he painted many large
pictures from Scripture.
Associated with Bourdon in founding the Academy
of Painting were four other Protestants, Louis Elle,
called Ferdinand, Samuel Bernard, the miniature
painter, Louis Testelin, and Louis Dugreur. Fourteen
other Huguenot painters became members of the
Academy between 1648 and 1675; but in October,
1681, eight were excluded for the crime of heresy,
the remainder apparently declaring themselves con-
verted, or ready to be converted, as after the Revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes only Catholics were
admitted.
XVL
The Peotestant Churches of Feakce no Longer
Allowed a National Character.
1659.
Notwithstanding the learning and virtue of their
divines, notwithstanding the influence of the many
eminent persons in art, in science, in the army and
navy, and among the nobility who still avowed them-
selves Protestant, the Reformed Churches of France
submitted to a gradual enslavement.
Bound by principle and tradition to the State, the
alliance became, after the fall of La Rochelle, a new
illustration of the fable of the wolf and the lamb.
Their organ of action and expression was the synod,
provincial or national. The court worked to render
THE NATIONAL SYNODS. 149
the occurrence of the latter more and more rare. Be-
tween 1631 and 1645 three national synods were held.
A royal commissioner was appointed to be present at
the first, which took place at Charenton. Pastors
and laymen were alike sad and humiliated ; they felt
at the mercy of their adversaries. The king named
the deputies who would be most agreeable to him, and
the synod obeyed. Later on the king willed that
there should be only one deputy, and this oflSce was
finally made hereditary in the family of the Marquis
de Ruvigny. The Reformed Churches entreated that
they might add a deputy of the third estate, but this
the king refused.
Six years passed before another national synod was
held. It took place in 1637, in the city of Alen^on,
and on this occasion M. de Saint-Marc, the royal com-
missioner, said: ^I am come to your synod in order
to make known to you the will of his majesty. All
authority is of God, and consequently on this immov-
able foundation you are bound to obey. Moreover,
the goodness of the king, and the care he takes of you,
oblige you to it ; his clemency and his power are the
firmest support you can possibly have. I don^t doubt
that you have often reflected on the admirable provi-
dence of God in causing the royal authority of his
majesty to be the means of their preservation.^ The
moderator, Basnage, replied that the Churches had
not the least idea of departing from that submission to
which the Word of God obliged them.
Already forbidden by royal authority to receive the
teaching of the Synod of Dort, they were now for-
bidden to correspond with foreign Churches. Letters
coming from Geneva and Holland were first opened
by the royal commissioner, who, after he had ac-
quainted himself with their contents, caused them to
be read to the synod. Still more — one synod might
I50 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
not correspond witli anotlier, tlie object clearly being
to separate tlie dying aslies as mucli as possible.
The poor synod solaced itself by considering tlie
slavery of the negroes. It concluded that the Word
of God did not forbid the buying and keeping of
slavesj but recommended the faithful not to abuse the
privilege by selling their slaves to barbarians or to
cruel people^ but to those who would care for their
immortal souls and bring them up in the Christian
religion.
At the next synod^ which took place at Charenton
seven years later on (1644). they were pushed down
a step lower still, the royal commissioner taking care
to be first in complaining of the encroachments and
usurpations of the Eeformed Churches. He then de-
clared that it was the will of the king that they should
exclude from the evangelic ministry all who had studied
at Geneva, or in Holland, or in England. The battle
of Marston Moor (July 2nd, 1644) had taken place
during the previous summer, and Henrietta Maria was
in France.
Some deputies of the maritime provinces having
reported that certain English Independents had estab-
lished themselves in France, and were teaching that
each flock had a right to govern itself, without regard-
ing the authority of synods, the assembly enjoined the
maritime provinces to take care that an opinion as
prejudicial to the Church of God as it was to the State
should not root itself in the kingdom.
However, the success of the English Puritans, and
the troubles of the Fronde, had a beneficial effect on
their condition. Mazarin felt it necessary to keep on
good terms with the Huguenots, and for a short time
they breathed freely. The exercise of their religion
was again permitted in places where it had been
illegally suppressed. The Edict of Nantes was again
MAZARIN. 151
confirmed m 1652, and its provisions carried out with
some reality.
But this relaxation in the process of garrotting
French Protestantism, aroused the ire of the Catholic
clergy, who bitterly complained of the oppression of
the Catholic Church. They wished for the re-estab-
lishment of the legitimate explanations given to the
Edict by the late king. They mourned to see how
the heretics had destroyed all the wise precautions that
great prince had taken to put a barrier to their rest-
less spirit. Some temples having been built on property
belonging to certain ecclesiastical lords, the assembly
of the clergy demanded their demolition, as ^syna-
gogues of Satan, raised on the patrimony of the Son
of God.' They hinted that the reports which the
Huguenots presented of their injuries amounted to
the establishment of the political assemblies forbidden
by various edicts, and that their collections in favour
of the Yaudois of Piedmont, who in 1655 were
atrociously massacred by their ruler, Charles Em-
manuel II., Duke of Savoy,^ indicated a dangerous
plot. They also declared that in some places the
Huguenots had again raised the fortifications, and
that the deserters of the faith of their fathers
aspired to the highest dignities of the State ; and in
conclusion they made a pathetic appeal for the pro-
tection of the king.
Mazarin, a very inferior man to Richelieu, was
alarmed, and the council published a declaration which
put things back into the state in which they were in
the days of Louis XIII. Not only was the exercise of
1 The occasion on which Milton wrote his noble sonnet :
' Avenge, Lord, Thy slaughtered saints.'
A poem which shows how Puritanism, like Huguenotism,
had drunk in the spirit of the Hebrew Psalms.
152 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
the Protestant religion forbidden in places where it
had been lately established, but ministers were for-
bidden to call themselves pastors, or their flocks,
CJiurcJies.
The Edict of Nantes had mentioned by name every
commune in which the Protestants were to have the
right to preach ; but in their now depressed condition
their numbers had so dwindled that there were not
enough to support a pastor, the result being that
several such communes united under one pastor. The
terms of the Edict being precise as to places, the only
objection the authorities could take was to question
the right of any pastor to preach out of the place in
which he was domiciled.
The Parliaments lent themselves to the most rigorous
interpretation of the law, and thus this pretext was
used during forty years to suppress more and more
Protestant preaching. The Huguenots having no
longer any political assemblies, and the national synod
being almost extinct, the provincial synods sent four
deputies in 1658 to lay their troubles before the
king. However, they got nothing but a promise that
he would look at their report and do them justice.
Finally he promised to observe the Edict of Nantes,
if they rendered themselves worthy of this grace
by their good conduct, fidelity, and affection for his
service.
In 1659, Louis XIV., by the treaty of the Pyrenees,
added to his realm Roussillon, Artois, and Alsace.
Conscious of his immense strength, he turned the last
screw of the garrote, and the existence of Protestant
France as a national Church ceased, except in so far
as it was represented by a solitary courtier, the
Marquis de Euvigny. Fifteen years had elapsed since
a national synod had been held; one was now per-
mitted at Loudun. On the king's side all was menace.
THE SYNOD OF 1659. 153
recrimination, accusation ; on the side of the Pro-
testants all was humility, abasement, expressions of
gratitude. The commissioner called upon them to
admire the benignity of the king, and forbade them
to make any complaint, declaring that it was the king
who had the most reason to complain of them, that
their infractions of the Edict had even reached a
supreme degree of insolence, for they had recommenced
preaching in Languedoc and elsewhere after it was
forbidden, a charge which had been made fifteen years
before at Chareuton, showing that they could not find
a single new pretext for reproach.
The moderator, Jean Daille, replied in a submissive
voice : ' We receive with all respect and all possible
humility all that which has been said to us on the
part of his majesty.' In return, the commissioner
pressed the synod to close its sittings quickly, and
plainly told them this would be the last synod per-
mitted. ^ The expense is too great,' said the repre-
sentative of a king who could waste millions on an
ugly and useless palace ; ^ besides, you have provincial
synods, which meet annually, and can do what is
necessary.'
Daille replied that they hoped the king would not
deprive them of his liberalities, but as the synod was
an absolute necessity, they would gladly support all its
expenses themselves. They finally resolved, subject
to the good pleasure of his majesty, that they would
hold another synod at Mmes in 1662.
But Louis XIV. refused absolutely to allow it. The
national synod of 1659 was last held by permission of
authority. Sixty-six years passed before another was
held, and then it was in secret, in the Desert, under
the heaviest penalties.
154 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
XVII.
Further Inroads on Huguenot Liberty.
After Henry lY. tlie Huguenots never had better
masters than tlie cardinals Riclielieu and Mazarin.
When the latter died, in 16G1, the ministers asked
Louis XIV. to whom they should go. ^ To ??ie/ replied
the king.
Persecution at once increased. Commissioners were
named to inquire strictly in each province into the
violations of the Edict of Nantes. To a great Catholic
official, powerful at court, was joined some unknown
Calvinist, who was occasionally a traitor. Of course
the Protestant cause was generally found a delinquent.
Among other things, the commissioners were to verify
the right of public worship. Many churches had
never had legal documents, or had lost them ; the con-
sequence was that services were interdicted, temples
pulled down, schools suppressed, and charities confis-
cated to Catholic uses.
In 1663, the clergy, on the application of its assem-
bly-general, obtained a law pronouncing the penalty
of banishment on all who returned to the Reformed
communion after having once abjured it. They could
not, it was said, claim the benefit of the Edict of
Nantes, as they had renounced it, and returning to
heresy, they were guilty of profaning the holy mys-
teries of the Catholic religion. The law was suspended
during the next year; it was probably found that
banishment was losing its terrors, even for Frenchmen.
In 1665, an ordinance of the council authorized
cures, accompanied by a magistrate, to go to houses
where there were any sick people, and to ask them if
they wished to die heretics, or to be converted to the
true religion.
INROADS ON HUGUENOT LIBERTY. 155
By a decree of tlie 24tli of October^ 1665, cliildren
were declared capable of embracing Catholicisra, boys
at fourteen years of age, girls at twelve; and the
parents were to pay for tbeir support away from home.
The bishops, not satisfied with this, complained that
the age was far too high, children must be allowed to
enter the Catholic Church as soon as they expressed
the wish. To this the Government practically said, 'Do
as you will.^ There were soon many juvenile abjura-
tions; and when the parents sought justice in the courts,
claiming that the children were not legally entitled to
abjure, the lawyers proved that there was a great differ-
ence between inducing a child to change its religion,
and the Church opening her arms to receive it when it
presented itself by a sort of inspiration from heaven.
The desire to serve one's country as a public official is
a legitimate, and may be a noble ambition; the Hugue-
nots keenly felt their exclusion from this career.
Colbert, however, finding it indispensable to have
honest men in the Treasury, opened its doors to the
Huguenots. There was some precedent for it in the
fact that under Mazarin, a German Protestant, Bar-
thelemy Her ward, had been appointed superintendent
of the finances and maintained there, notwithstanding
clerical opposition. But of course the chief reason
that enabled Colbert to act as he did, was that he
was himself absolutely indispensable to Louis XIV., as
the man who supplied all the money for his ambitious
wars. Thus the Huguenots came into the Treasury,
and, by their power of organization, econom}^, and
probity, ' became the most reliable farmers and com-
missioners of the taxes it was possible for Colbert to
find. One immediate effect was the rise in public
esteem of the whole service; and though it was the
age of Moliere, La Fontaine, and Boileau, the Treasury
officials were never satirised.
156 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Shut out from all other public offices, refused ad-
mission into the municipal magistracy, the Protestants
gave themselves up to trade and manufactures, to
agriculture and the arts. Their lives were passed
under an irritating and pettifogging tyranny. If a
procession passed their temples when they were sing-
ings they were compelled to leave off. They must
bury their dead at break of day or at dusk, and only
ten persons might follow, except in certain cities,
where thirty were permitted. They could only marry
at times fixed by the canons of the Roman Catholic
Church, and the nuptial procession might not, in pass-
ing through the streets, relatives included, number
more than twelve persons. Rich Churches might not
support the ministers of poorer ones, besides other
injurious restrictions.
This sure and steady process of slow starvation did
not, however, satisfy eager spirits like that of the
Bishop of Uzes, who in the General Assembly of the
clergy, in 1665, declared to the king that it was
needful to work with more ardour, in order to cause
this terrible monster of heresy to yield up its last
breath. He asked that henceforth no one should be
allowed to go out of the Roman Church, adding
that twenty-two dioceses in Languedoc had demanded
this law of the provincial states, and that all the
dioceses of the kingdom were ready to seal it with
their blood.
This proposal was not carried out ; but next year an
enormous concession was made to the clergy, for all
the judgments which had been given in individual
cases were embodied into a general law, thus rendering
perpetual the various successful efforts made to restrain
the liberties granted by the Edict of Nantes. This
was the commencement of the emigration, and of the
great sympathy which more and more manifested itself
THE HUGUENOTS AND THE KING. 157
in foreign countries. The Elector of Brandenburg
made representatious on behalf of the oppressed
Huguenots. England and Sweden also manifested
their interest. The result was that niue of the articles
in this new law were suppressed and twenty-one
softened.
XVIII.
The Huguenots and the King.
Unbelief and despotism^ faith and liberty — these two
sets of parents make opposing worlds. Protestantism
was born of the latter, and was, therefore, always
inimical to, and hated by, the former. In France the
world formed by unbelief and despotism grew stronger
through every decade of this seventeenth century. In
the last quarter of this period it reached maturity, and
exhibited fruits which render its history one of the
saddest, but, at the same time, one of the most instruc-
tive pages in history. Let us not think that we can
afford to be ignorant of its warnings. The Apostle
Paul, than whom none knew better that the world had
outlived the Mosaic economy, said, referring to some
of the facts of its history : ' These thiugs were written
for our instruction, on whom the ends of the world are
come.^
This terrible despotism was able to impose itself on
France, and to reach such a point because it was in
harmony with public opinion. Everybody, from the
beggar to the prince, believed in it. Even the bulk
of the Protestants conceived it their highest earthly
duty, as well as their greatest earthly advantage, to be
employed in maintaining this despotism. What was
the object of Louis Fourteenth's wars but to establish
this despotism over Europe ? And every victory he
158 THE REFORM ATI ON IN FRANCE.
gained enabled liim to tread more heavily on the nccl:
of France^ and crush without fear the last breath frori
the Huguenot Churches, prostrate and dying. Ard
yet the Reformed Churches of France duly returned
thanks for those victories in their temples. It was as
if the children of Ahaz had returned thanks to Jehovah
for the triumphs of the idol at whose shrine they were
about to be sacrificed.
There was it would seem hardly anything the
Huguenots felt more than to be shut out of the public
offices, nothing which their historians record with
more pleasure than the way Colbert filled the finance
department with Protestants, and maintained them
there as long as he lived. It never seems to have
occurred to the Huguenots, or even to their modern
historians, that they were devoting all their virtue and
all their pains to strengthening the system which was
steadily crushing out the only cause worth living for —
the cause of the kingdom of heaven. The reflection,
obvious enough now, that all their savings only helped
Louis to slaughter, to waste more money in his lusts
and follies, does not appear to have crossed their minds.
Colbert saw it at last, could not escape from it, and it
killed him. But the Huguenot officials went on like a
hive of busy bees making* honey for the wasps, until
the latter, unable to restrain themselves any longer,
drove out all the bees and ate up all the honey.
This universal blindness is Louis Fourteenth's best
excuse. ^ He was deified,^ says St. Simon, ' in the
midst of Christianity.'' A statue was erected to him
in the Place des Yictoires, with the inscription, Yiro
Immortali. Says the great Jurieu in his noble work,
TJiG 8iglis of Enslaved France : ^ The King of France
believes himself tied to no laws. He is persuaded
that his will is the law of right and wrong, and that he
is answerable to God alone. He is absolute master
BOSSUET AND LOUIS XIV. 159
of tlie life^ liberty, persons,, goods, religion, aucl con-
science of his subjects/
Bossuet and Louis XIV. were entirely in accord on
the absolute authority which kings have over their
subjects; but there was one point where Bossuet
stopped — he did not admit the right of the king over
private property.
Louis made no such reserve,
' All/ he said, ^ which is found in the whole extent
o£ our states, of whatever nature it may be, belongs
to us by the same title. The moneys in our privy
purse, those which remain in the hands of our trea-
surers, and iliose that lue leave in the commerce of our
people, ought to be equally looked after by us. Kings
are absolute lords, and have naturally the full and free
disposition of all the goods which are possessed as well
by Churchmen as by the laity, for use at any time
according to the general want.'
XIX.
Public Opinion and the Huguenots.
To comprehend the story before us, it is necessary to
understand the nature of the public opinion which
could glory in such a monarch, while it pursued with
unrelenting animosity the small section of the popula-
tion who would not prostrate themselves at full length
before the colossal idol the followers of Macchiavelli
and of Loyola had combined to set up.
Bossuet's opinions may be taken as those of the
French clergy. With him they embraced the whole
sphere of things, with them they centred on the one
subject that engaged their thoughts — the absolute, un-
questioned supremacy of the Church. ' The one source
of all our misfortunes,' said the Bishop of Valence to
i6o THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
an assembly of clergy ia 1685, 'is, as you know, my
lords, lieresy. The destruction of heresy is our one
business. Until now it has been very difficult, but
now nothing escapes the zeal, penetration, and under-
standing of the king. However, as the malice of
heretics is unbounded, there are many things the
heart of a kiug so good and so generous has not been
able to discover. There are many enterprises yet to
repress. But this ought to console us ; we are assured
of success.^
Madame de Sevigne is one of the best representa-
tives of ' Society ' in the age of Louis XIV. To
genius and good-humour she added such virtue as to
appear quite a paragon among her contemporaries.
Nevertheless she thinks it an honour to be a partner
with the sharpest hand at the king^s gambling-table
and to chat with the king's mistress ; while of the
Huguenots she speaks as ' those demons,^ ' those
wretched Huguenots, who come out of their holes to
pray to God, and who disappear like ghosts directly
you seek them and want to exterminate them.' She
expresses herself with her usual vivacity on the
Dragonnades, which evidently met with her approval.
' The dragoons have been very good missionaries until
now; the preachers' (Bourdaloue, etc.) Hhat are going
to be immediately sent will render the work perfect.'
What she and her correspondent, the Comte de Bussy
Rabutin, thought of the king and the Huguenots
comes out in the following extract from a letter
addressed to her by the comte soon after the Revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes : ' I admire the way the
king has managed the ruin of the Huguenots. He
had undermined this sect by degrees, and the edict he
has just given, sustained by dragoons and Bourdaloues,
will be their coxij) de grace.''
If it is sad to find persons like Bossuet and
HUGUENOT PROSPERITY. i6i
Madame de Sevigne sharing in and doing their very
best to form the horrible public opinion of the day,
it is still sadder when we come to find the people
themselves animated by it^ and making themselves its
instruments.
It is true there have been times and occasions when
the masses of the people have raged against the
preachers of the Gospel, and joined in their persecu-
tion, but it has only been for a time ; it has almost
always ended in the people returning to the attitude
in which they received it from the Lord Himself.
But here we find the persecution persistent, and
unprovoked by anything in the way of preaching ; for
a Huguenot pastor could not preacli outside a temple.
No doubt fanaticism had much to do with it, and
example still more ; but this would hardly explain the
antipathy the people displayed in not only enduring
unmoved the ever-increasing cruelty and injustice
with which the Huguenots were treated, but in giving
that cruelty and injustice their help and support.
Abraham Bosse's engravings show us how pro-
sperous the Huguenots were, how they dwelt in a
Land of Goshen. But we hardly need proof of the
fact : a religious, industrious people, holding together,
must become rich ; it is the universal law. In this
case it was rendered more certain by the fact that
the Calvinist Churclies were chiefly recruited from the
trading classes in the towns. The sight of this pro-
sperity, in the midst of so much misery, could not fail
to arouse envy, suspicion, hatred. The disabilities
under whicli the Huguenots laboured, and a great
lacuna in the creed upon which their character was
formed, led tliem into positions which gave ground
for dislike, and intensified the popular disfavour.
Excluded from all the learned professions and all
the public offices, they were necessarily drivon into
L
162 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
buying and selling the ordinary commodities of life^ or_,
if capitalists, of dealing in money. The Reformers,
early accused of Antinomianism^ had made much of
the moral law ; but it was that of the Old Testament
rather than the New. The Sermon on the Mount,
which was the true antidote to the snares and temp-
tations of such a position, had far from an adequate
place in Calvinistic theology. It is easy to see how a
people thus situated must necessarily play the part of
Pharaoh's fat kine, a law only to be avoided by their
obedience to the laws of the kingdom of heaven.
The unpopularity brought about by this condition
of things must have been further aggravated by the
way in which Huguenots assisted Colbert in wringing
the taxes out of the people. This eminent statesman,
by the force of his violent will and his tremendous
energy, galvanised France, and made it for a few
years a Titan in war and commerce. Holland and
England were becoming plethoric with wealth gained
by their world-embracing marine. France should
have the same, should share with these powers the
commerce of the globe. Colbert did what he deter-
mined. In four years he had built seventy men-of-
war, in six years he had a fleet of 194 ships. To man
it, all sailors were declared to belong to the king, so
that they could at any time be impressed, and made to
serve on board the royal navy. But the creation of
this fleet was not the end ; it was a means to seize
and maintain a commerce which had to be created.
Colbert invited new industries into France, and to
give them a chance of rooting, he passed prohibitory
duties on English and Dutch linens and cloths. In
three or four years wool alone kept 44,000 looms
going. An enormous development of trade suddenly
took place in Lyons, and great fortunes were made.
Still further, to give life and impetus to this impro-
COLBERT. 163
vised commerce, colonies were bouglit, commercial
companies started, something like chambers of com-=
merce instituted, and roads constructed.
For all these things immense sums of money were
wanted, and how to force it out of a people starving
and impoverished was the great question. Perhaps it
might have been comparatively easy if Colbert had
been king, and his work only one of peace and the
development of trade ; but there were Louis XIV. and
Louvois, with their great wars and enormous armies ;
there was a vast body of idle nobility wasting their
lives and their goods at court ; there were myriads of
priests and nuns who had to live, and added nothing
to the general wealth. To sustain all this expense
and all this waste, Colbert became a tyrant. The laws
gave him thirty or forty means of raising money. In
the expressive language of Jurieu, ^ A thousand
channels were open by which he could draw the blood
of the people.^ ' France,^ said the same writer, ' pays
200,000,0001 taxes. All the rest of the rulers in
Europe, Spain, England, Sweden, Denmark, the em-
peror and all the German and Italian princes, the
republics of Holland and Venice, do not altogether
get as much out of their subjects.^ For nowhere
else was such a rack-rent system attempted. It was
worked by farmers-general, who were responsible for
the taxes of a district. In the villages the taxes were
collected by the notables, who were made answerable
in their own persons and property, and who, when they
attempted the collection, were obliged to go about
in a body, or they would have been stoned. In the
end the people were robbed of everything, furniture,
cattle, money, corn, wine ; the prisons were full.
^ Jurieu no doubt means livres. The livre tournois was the
unit of the French monetary system, and was worth a trifle
more than a frauc.
l64 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Colbert died cursed by the people. It troubled him
as he lay on his death-bed. ^ Had 1/ he said, ^ done for
God what I have done for this man ' (Louis XIV.), ^I
should be sure of being saved, but now I know not
where I am goiug.' The Huguenots were, as we have
stated, his best assistants. * They entered,' says Elie
Benoit, ' into the farms and the commissions, and ren-
dered themselves so necessary in affairs of this kind
that Fouquet, even as well as Colbert, could not do
without them.
No doubt, whatever there was of justice, humanity,
disinterestedness was found among the Huguenot
officials ; but the people could not distinguish one from
another. The system was so terribly oppressive that
a single clerk of the taxes appeared many times more
a worse foe than a sea of 40,000 leagues with its
pirates and its storms.
XX.
The Conversion and Jubilee op the King Inaugurate
A New Series of Persecutions.
This glance at public opinion in France during the
later half of the seventeenth century will enable us
better to understand the persistent persecution with
which the Protestants were pursued, a persecution
tending more and more to extermination. The very
existence of a people claiming the right to think
differently from the king on the most important of all
questions was a menace to absolute authority, and
thus for political reasons there had been this persis-
tent persecution from the accession of Louis XIII. in
IGIO, to the jubilee of Louis XIV. in 1676. But when
in that year, owing to the so-called conversion of the
king, religious motives were added to political ones,
1
A NEW SERIES OF PERSECUTIONS. 165
the persecution took a more exterminatory form, and
did not cease until it seemed to have extirpated
Calvinism to its very roots.
The conversion of the king to exterior morality and
religion is attributed to his last mistress and second
wife, Madame de Maintenon, a grand-daughter of the
great Agrippa d'Aubigne, who through the miserable
character of her father was brought up in a convent
and made a Catholic. Her influence over the king
exceeded that exercised by any other person in the
whole of his career, for she was a very serious person,
and knew how to affect his conscience. She must
therefore bear with his other intimate advisers — his
confessor, Pere la Chaise ; his chancellor, Le Tellier ;
and his minister, Louvois, — the blame of all the fright-
ful iniquity which now ensued.
Perhaps it was the ability the Huguenots had dis-
played in the management of the royal finances that
induced the king and his council to believe that they
were specially devoted to money-making, and might
easily be bought if each man was duly paid his price.
To this good work Louis determined to consecrate a
third of his savings, as well as the proceeds of all the
benefices that fell iu, the temporals of which he took
until the see was filled up. A bank was opened, and
Pellison, a new convert to the king's religion, was
appointed its director. It had its agents all over the
provinces, and a regular system of business. No
more than a hundred francs a head was to be given,
and less in the general way. More might, however,
be granted in special cases, if explained to his majesty,
and he should judge it advisable. PeUison soon pre-
sented a list of eight hundred converts; the miracle
was trumpeted forth in the gazettes. But ere long it
had to be whispered to the king that he was being
duped, that the people bought were rogues. Where-
1 66 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
upon Louis enacted that the rogues should not escape
the chance of being reformed by Catholic discipline,
for any relapse back again into Protestantism was to
be punished with perpetual banishment and confis-
cation of goods.
Bribery having failed, Louis reverted to force. It
was soon understood throughout the official world that
there was no better way to please the king than to
assist him in his great work of extirpating heresy from
France ; and very soon every one in authority began to
enter into this congenial line of converting the Hugue-
nots by force. One civil right after another was taken
away ; they were attacked in their tenderest points —
family life and religious worship. The chambers of
the Edict in Paris and Rouen were suppressed in 1669,
and the mixed chambers in the Parliaments of Toulouse,
Grenoble, and Bordeaux in 1679. The provincial par-
liaments had long distinguished themselves by the
severity with which they carried out all the cruel laws
against heresy. In 1664, Elie Saurin, the Protestant
theologian, passed the ^ holy sacrament ^ without raising
his hat. He was condemned by the Grenoble Parliament
to be conducted in his shirt, barefooted, a lighted
candle weighing two pounds in his hand, and a halter
round his neck, to the principal door of the chief church
in Embrun, and there to declare that he had foolishly
and audaciously passed before the holy sacrament of
the altar without raising his hat, that he repented of it,
and asked pardon of God, the king, and the court,
after which he was to be banished in perpetuity.
During the next year a man of high Catholic family,
Louis Rambard, spoke against the holy sacrament, but
consenting to remain Catholic, he was not then pro-
ceeded against. Ten years elapsed, and he became a
Protestant, whereupon this same Parliament of Grenoble
sentenced him to all the indignities they proposed for
A NEW SERIES OF PERSECUTIONS. 167
Saurin, and in addition to have his tongue cut out,
then to be hanged and strangled until natural (6*ic)
death ensued, when his body was to be burnt and his
ashes scattered to the winds. He was to pay 1,000
livres to buy a silver lamp for the Church of Die, and
500 more to buy a piece of ground to maintain it ; in
addition he was to give 1,000 livres to repair the said
church, and fifty livres fine to the king to pay the
cost of his trial. Rambard was able to escape to
Geneva, and so to evade his cruel persecutors; but the
extreme barbarity of the sentence shows how much the
Protestants lost by the suppression of the mixed cham-
bers in which they were represented.
Children were carried off as early as 1676. By an
edict of June 17th, 1684, it was ordained that any
child over seven years of age could abjure the pre-
tended Reformed religion, and embrace that of the
Church of Rome, its parents not being allowed to
prevent it on any pretext whatsoever, but were
required all the same to provide for its maintenance.
The slightest act was sufficient as sign of adhesion.
Children were torn from their parents, especially from
the rich, who could pay a good sum for board, and
were then shut up in a convent or a monastery. Parents,
it appears, tried to save their little ones by sending
them out of the country ; a law was enacted forbidding
this to be done before a child was sixteen years of age.
AH illegitimate children, of whatever sex or condition,
were to be brought up as Catholics ; and this law being
retrospective, persons of sixty or eighty years of age
who had had the misfortune to come into the world
under these conditions were now summoned to enter
the Church of Rome. In pursuance of this war on
Huguenot domestic life, Protestants were forbidden to
marry Catholics, or to become guardians or trustees
even to their nearest relatives. They were not allowed
1 68 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
to have Catholics for valets^ and then by a contradic-
tory law they were to have none but Catholics.
In order to entice into abjuration those who were
deeply in debt, a law was made granting a delay of
payment for three years to the newly converted, the
main inconvenience falling, it is natural to suppose, on
their Huguenot friends. Another bribe held out was
remission of the taxes for two years to the newly con-
verted; those remaining recalcitrant paying double
the usual rate, in order that the treasury might not
lose by its generosity.
Medical men, surgeons, and others attending the
sick, were ordered, under a heavy penalty, to give notice
to the magistrates of a district, who were bound to
pay domiciliary visits, in order to ask sick persons if
they wished to abjure.
8uch was the activity of the legists in these days
that between the year 1660 and October, 1685, there
were fulminated in France 309 orders, declarations,
and edicts against the Huguenots. The pastors were
more and more hampered, until the moment came
for putting an end to their work ; meanwhile they
were not allowed to complain of the sadness of the
times. They were obliged to live six leagues from any
place where worship was interdicted, and at least
three from any place where it was contested. No
gatherings were to take place in the temples under
pretext of prayers and singing psalms, except at the
accustomed hours. No convert to Catholicism was to
be received into a temple under pain of banishment
and conliscation of goods for the pastor, and interdic-
tion of all religious worship for the flock. Under this
law it was very easy to demolish a temple and destroy
religious worship, as, for example, at Montpellier, where
a young girl named Isabeau Paulet, who had escaped
from a convent, where they had not succeeded in con-
DEMOLITION OF TEMPLES. 169
verting her, entered the temple unknown to the pastor,
in consequence of which the Parb'ament of Toulouse
interdicted him from ever again exercising his ministry,
abolished the evangelic worship in Montpellier, and
ordered the demolition of the temple in a fortnight
(1682). The demolition of temples went on every-
where. In 1664, one of the temples of Nimes was thus
pulled down, as well as those of Grenoble, Montauban,
Montagnac, Alencon, and one hundred and fifty-two
churches of Lower Languedoc, of the Upper Ce venues,
and Provence. In the diocese of Valence, twenty-four
were destroyed in two years. In 1684, in the Dauphine
alone, twenty-four churches were suppressed by an
order in council. Between 1660 and 1684 no less
than 570 Protestant temples were closed or demolished
in France, just upon two-thirds of the whole number
the Reformed Churches possessed. The destruction of
some of these places was accompanied by popular
violence, as at Blois and AlenQon, where the mob
rushed into the temples, tore up the books, the seats,
and the pulpit, and then burnt them.
Nor was it only their temples of which they were
deprived : colleges, academies, hospitals, shared the
same fate. The academy at Nimes was suppressed in
1664, and that of Sedan in 1681. The ruin of that of
Montauban had been effected soon after 1661. Those
of Die, Saumur, and Puylaurens, were all condemned
in 1684, the property of the first named being made
over to the Hospital de la Croix. In a similar way
the furniture of the Protestant hospital at Nimes was
in 1667 handed over to the Catholic hospital, and the
building turned into an orphan asylum for Catholics
or those who desired to become such.
Louis XIV., in fact, boldly illustrated his theory of
the right of the crown to dispose of everything in
France according to his view of the general want.
I70 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
All the funds for the support of the Protestant poor
were seized, and the recipients sent to the Catholic
hospitals. Legacies to consistories were also annulled.
In fact, these bodies could no longer meet, except in
the presence of a royal commissioner, the business
they had to transact being about the most doleful
possible, since it consisted in the receipt of orders,
proclamations, edicts, each registering another step in
ruin. Sometimes they had to receive the intendant of
the province, accompanied by a retinue of officers and
priests, and humbly listen to his orders. Sometimes
they had to appease tumults rising among their long-
suffering people ; and all through they were themselves
split into fractions, whose alienation grew every day
in intensity.
Sometimes they sought spiritual strength and con-
solation by a day of fasting and prayer. Thus the
Synod of Lower Languedoc assembled at Uzes in
May, 1669, composed of seventy pastors and fifty-three
elders, and after having meditated on the evils of the
time, they celebrated, ^ in order to appease the anger
of God, which,^ they conceived, ^ weighed burning and
terrible on the Churches,^ an extraordinary fast, during
which they listened to four successive sermons. At
the conclusion of this austere service, the members of
the assembly gave each other the kiss of peace and
the right hand of fellowship, commending each other
to God and the Word of His grace.
XXI.
The Booted Mission.
Louvois, annoyed to find that with the cessation of
war and the rise of Madame de Maintenon his in-
fluence with the king had ceased, determined to throw
THE BOOTED MISSION. 171
liimself into the movement o£ the day^ the conversion
of Huguenots^ and thereupon organized what is now
known as la mission hottee — the booted mission.
In his capacity of war minister he had the control
of the troops, and accordingly he sent a regiment of
cavalry into Poitou, with orders to Marillac, the inten-
dantj to quarter the greater number on the Protestants.
' Where/ he said, ^ by a fair division the religionaries
should have ten, you can give them twenty .■* Marillac
entered into the spirit of his orders, for he marched as
if he were in a hostile country, causing his troops to
collect all the arrears of the taxes, exempting converts
and throwing the whole burden on those who obsti-
nately adhered to their religion. About four to ten
dragoons were lodged in each Protestant home, with
orders not to kill their victims, but to do everything
they possibly could to wrest from them an abjuration.
Their amusements were from their own point of view
as blasphemous as they were cruel, for to make them
kiss the cross they tied it to their mouths, or dug them
Avith it under the ribs ; they struck the children with
their canes or the flat of their swords or the butt end
of their muskets, and that in so violent a manner as
sometimes to lame the victim. They flogged the
women with whips, or struck them in their faces with
their canes ; they dragged them through the mud by
the hair of their head ; they tore the labourers from
their ploughs, and drove them to church with their
own ox-goads.
Many felt these things beyond endurance, and
determined to quit France. Thousands of Huguenot
families emigrated ; what, however, most alarmed the
government was the flight of a great number of the
sailors, who went off en masse. The intendants were
ordered to desist, and the laws against emigration
were put into vigorous execution : penal servitude for
172 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
life on the galleys to heads of families flyings a fine of
3,000 livres to all who helped them to do so, while all
contracts entered into by emigrants for a twelvemonth
previous to their departure were annulled.
During the years that elapsed between the first
Dragonnades and the Revocation, every man had to
choose between life and all he held dear and his con-
science; there was no escape. Pilate, when he saw
Jesus Christ at his bar, when he beheld that face on
which the most virulent could discern no trace of evil,
Pilate when he heard the cry, ' Crucify Him ! crucify
Him ! ^ could not help exclaiming, ^ Why, what evil
hath He done ? ' so all Europe in astonishment and
pity must have exclaimed as they heard of this atro-
cious persecution.
^ Are we,' cried Jurieu, in 1683, ^ Turks? Are we
infidels ? We believe in Jesus Christ ; we believe in
the eternal Son of God, the Redeemer of the world ;
the maxims of our morality are of a purity so great
that none would dare to deny them ; we respect
kings; we are good subjects, good citizens; we are
French as much as we are reformed Christians.'
The Protestants continued to send up the story
of their sufferings to the court, the privy council,
to the king himself. Ruvigny, their deputy-general,
represented to Louis the great misery of two millions
of his subjects. The king, it is said, answered,
that to recall all his subjects to Catholic unity, he
would give one of his arms, or with one hand cut off
the other.
Was this fanaticism ? Was it not rather the Ahab-
spirit on the grandest scale ? As long as that little
Huguenot garden of herbs existed outside the Ludo-
vican Church and State, Europe itself would not have
made Louis happy. To the camarilla about him the
ruin of the French Naboth brought literally results
FURTHER PERSECUTIONS. 173
similar in kind to those attending the fate of the
Hebrew prototype.
' I beg you/ writes Madame de Maintenon (Septem-
ber 2nd, 1681) to her brother, who was about to receive
a gratuity of 800,000 livres, ^ to employ advanta-
geously the money ^ow. are going to have. The estates
in Poitou are going for nothing, the desolation of the
Huguenots will make them go on selling. You will
be able with ease to establish yourself grandly in
Poitou.^
XXII.
Some Huguenots Attempt to Appeal to the
Conscience of Feance.
We have already noted the contradictory law about
valets; in 1683 similarly opposing enactments were
published concerning the attendance of Catholics in
Protestant temples ; by an ordinance of the 8tli of
March, ministers who received a Catholic into the
pretended Keformed religion, or suffered them to
attend the temples and listen to sermons, were con-
demned to perpetual banishment from France, with
confiscation of all their property. On the 20th of
May following appeared a declaration, ordering that
there should be an allotted place in the temples where
Catholics could sit, who out of zeal for the increase of
religion desired to attend the sermons.
In both instances the cause of the contradictory law
was plaiuj the government wished to organise a system
of espionage. Here was the commencement of another
series of persecutions, more desolating, more unendur-
able than any that had yet occurred.
Have we not noted again and again in history, how,
in the darkest moment of peril to a downtrodden and
174 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
oppressed people, the appearance of a man of great
heart and boundless faith puts into them new courage,
and they go forth resolute to endure and perhaps to
conquer ? God sends a man before them, and by his
aid they are, at least for a time, sustained, and every
such gasp is an assurance that they will weather the
storm, and finally overcome the adversary. So at this
time appears on the stage a man who, with Jurieu,
carries on the great traditions of the Calvinist Churches
of France.
Claude Brousson was born at Nimes in 1647. The
son of a tradesman, he was trained for the bar, and
became an avocat in the mixed chamber of Castres,
which he followed to Toulouse. For twenty years he
had shown himself the disinterested protector of the
poor, and the zealous defender of the oppressed
Churches. And now that they were absolutely over-
whelmed and in danger of total extinction, this man
of faith risks all, that he may place himself at the
post of danger, by becoming their advocate before the
king, court, and country. He was a man of faith, of
prayer, and a believer in the human conscience. He
felt that in Louis XIV., in the governors, in the
magistrates, in the Catholic people of France, there
was a power to which he could appeal that would be
on the side of the oppressed, and he was determined
to risk all to compel them to listen to that still small
voice.
On the 3rd of May, 1683, sixteen representatives of
the Churches in Languedoc, the Cevennes, the Yivarais
and Dauphine, met in Claude Brousson's house in
Toulouse, to consider what they should do. It was
resolved to show Louis and all France that they and
their cause were not dead, by the simultaneous gathering
of the interdicted Churches in their accustomed places
of worship, and where the temples had been destroyed.
MASSACRES ORDERED BY LOU VOLS. 175
in some place sufficiently out of the way to give no occa-
sion of offence, and yet not so hidden but that all might
know that a religious assembly had taken place.
Unhappily the great trials through which the
Churches had passed had developed two characters :
the zealots, who were ready for any enterprise, and
the timid and politic, who yielded point after point
until at last they yielded themselves. This party con-
sidered the Toulouse resolution rash, and would have
nothing to do with it.
On the day appointed, several meetings took place
over the country, but Louvois prepared beforehand,
sent his soldiers, and the peasants fled into the woods,
where they were killed by hundreds. It was a
butchery, not a fight, says Rulhieres. The temples in
which the victims had worshipped were destroyed and
their houses razed. Those who had yielded on the offer
of pardon, on condition of abjuring, were hanged.
In the Vivarais the people thus attacked themselves
took arms. Louvois promised an amnesty if they
would lay them down, but he excepted all the ministers,
besides fifty other prisoners, as well as all those he
sent to the galleys. One aged pastor, Isaac Homel,
an old man of seventy-two, he broke alive on the wheel
(Oct. 16th, 1683).
Meanwhile some thirty pastors and lay deputies
arrived from Lower Languedoc at Nimes, desiring to
hold a colloquy ; but the Nimois consistory, led by the
pastors Cheiron and Paulhan, and the deacon Saint
Comes, refused to agree to such a course, whereupon
the others determined to ask permission of the tem-
porary commandant of the province, who, however,
absolutely refused to allow them to assemble as synod
or colloquy under pain of being criminally pursued as
guilty of lese-majesty and as disturbers of the public
peace.
176 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE,
The deputies^ however^ had come to Nimes to hold
an assembly, and were not to be moved from their
purpose ; so they held it secretly at the house of a
dealer in muslins, named Vincent, on the night of the
2nd and ord of October. Burning with indignation
at the wrongs they were suffering, and the impossibility
of making their voice heard, they determined on nothing
less tlian a revolt. Their project was to seize the city
with the aid of the Cevennols, who they knew only
waited the signal to rise.
But, as is so often the case in these projects born
of over-powering passion, they were betrayed. The
authorities at once arranged for the arrest of the con-
spirators, but before they attempted to do so, they
sent to the commandant for some troops. These
troops two important personages in Nimes went to
meet, but encountering a horseman on their route,
they took him for a scout of the approaching dra-
goons, and asked him how far his companions were off.
The horseman, who was a Nimois Huguenot belong-
ing to the party of resistance, recognised his my-
sterious interrogators, and putting spurs to his horse
arrived in time to warn his friends of their peril. It
was evening, and raining in torrents, so that the in-
culpated parties were able to leave their respective
homes and find hiding-places without being observed.
When the Duke of Noailles arrived with his regi-
ment, and found himself unable to capture any of the
leaders, he caused the city gates to be closed, and
forbade any inhabitant under pain of death and the
demolition of his house to give shelter to any of the
proscribed. Those who were open to the threatened
penalty were in terror, and some thought to denounce
their guests. Among the latter were those in whose
house Claude Brousson had taken refuge ; however,
they ended by begging him to leave. He wandered
THE SECOND DRAGONNADES. 177
about for two days and two nights^ biding bimself in
obscure boles and corners^ almost paralysed by tbe
cold, and dying of bunger, tracked by tbe watcb, ar-
rested, interrogated, and miraculously allowed to go.
At last be noticed tbe orifice of tbe main sewer, wbicb
was in tbe principal street of tbe town, just opposite
tbe Jesuits' College. He lost no time in descending,
and creeping as well as be could tbrougb tbe black
and foetid mud, be reacbed, after many difficulties,
tbe ditcb outside tbe city walls, from wbence be got
into tbe open country, and in tbe end arrived safely in
Switzerland.
XXIII.
The Second Deagonnades.
We bave seen bow tbe flame of piety, burning low, it
may be, in tbe time of tbeir prosperity, bad daring
tbese days of affliction risen bigber and bigber. Tbe
destruction of tbe temples, tbe interdiction of public
worsbip, only served to increase tbe ardour witb wbicb
tbey ^ longed for tbe courts of tbe Lord,' so tbat in
some provinces people walked fifty or sixty leagues to
attend public worsbip. Tbe temples, now so scarce,
became centres of mass-meetings, tbe first comers
occupyiug tbe building, wbile vast numbers remained
witbout holding a common worsbip ; for tbe pastors,
not being able to take a part, it was confined to sing-
ing psalms and reading prayers. At nigbt, bowever,
tbeir ministers stole among tbem, exborting tbem witb
tears to remain firm in tbe faitb. Sometimes it
happened tbat tbe worshippers found themselves con-
fronted witb a new edict from the authorities, as at
Marennes, in Saintonge, where, in extremely rough
weather, some ten thousand people bad arrived one
M
178 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Sunday, in 168 A, to celebrate Divine worship in their
temple. The building, capable of holding 14,000
people, was found closed, an order having arrived the
previous night interdicting all worship, some relapsed,
or some children of the newly converted having
entered during a previous service. Weeping and
sighing the people threw themselves into each other's
arms, or with clasped hands lifted their eyes to heaven.
They dared not stop in the neighbourhood, and in re-
turning some, probably infants, for they had among
tbem twenty-four, died.
These children had been brought to receive the
initiatory rite of communion with the Church, for the
persecutors, who spared no pains to suppress the
preaching of the Word and pubhc worship, who feared
not to tread down the most sacred rights of humanity,
shrank from interfering with the Huguenot cere-
monials of baptism and marriage, the pastors perform-
iug them under the eyes of the authorities.
In 1 685, Bossuet was fifty- eight years of age ; Bour-
daloue, fifty-three; Fenelon, thirty-four; in the very
prime, therefore, of life, and from their positions as
well able as any men to know what was going on in
France. Bourdaloue, a Jesuit and a court preacher,
representing Eeligion at Versailles, as Turenne had
represented War, and Racine the Drama, Bourdaloue
could not fail to have known all that was known at
Versailles. Fenelon was director of an institution in
Paris specially founded for the reception of Huguenot
girls who had been made converts to the Roman
Catholic religion. The detail might very well have
been unknown to them, but they could not fail to have
been aware of the general character of the persecution
and the frightful turn it took in this same year, 1685.
Yet it was in May of that year, at an assembly of
the clergy, that Louis was not only complimented on
THE SECOND DRAGONNADES. 179
tlie success of his efforts to extirpate heresy^ but tlie
Bishop of Valence poetically remarked that the king
had led wanderers^ who perhaps might never other-
wise have returned to the bosom of the Churchy hij a
road strewn until flowers. As this bishop, coming from
the Dauphine, could not have been ignorant of the
fiicts, and as there is no reason to suppose he was
mocking his hearers, we must charitably conclude that
he really thought so ; but in that case what a light on.
the sufferings of the Dauphino for generations, on the
nature of the pontifical absolutism under which they
groaned, on the notions of Christianity entertained by
the prelates of the Galilean Church.
About the very time that Monseigneur de Valence
was uttering this pretty nonsense, the Dragonnades
recommenced with greater cruelty than ever.
Certain troops having been cantoned in Beam to
watch the Spanish army, and a truce having been
proclaimed, Louvois thought he would turn them to
account as missioners. Accordingly in July, 1685, the
very mouth that English Nonconformity received such
a blow at the battle of Sedgemoor, the commander of
the troops, Boufflers, and Foucault, the intendant of
the province, received orders to take in hand the con-
version of the Huguenots.
The subjects of their efforts were immediately in-
formed that they must return to the Catholic unity,
and some hundreds were at once forced into a church,
where the Bishop of Lescar officiated, beaten until
they fell on their knees, when they were absolved of
their heresy, and told they would be punished if they
relapsed. The Huguenots everywhere fled into the
forests, deserts, caverns of the Pyrenees, but being
pursued, were driven back to their houses, where they
were subjected to cruelties surpassing those practised
in Poitou.
i8o THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
The soldiers rushed about their houses with drawn
swords, crying, ' Tug, iue, on Gatlioliqnes.' They sacked
the place, broke up the furniture, sold the things to
the peasants; they repeated their usual violence
against the persons of their victims. But in addition,
at the express command of the intendant, Foucault,
they commenced a maddening torture. They were to
keep awake those whom they could not convert by
other torments. By beating drums, by blasphemous
cries, by pitching the furniture about, they kept
these unhappy beings in continual agitation; and when
these means failed, they tied them up by their heels
until they were almost dead, or they brought burning
coals near their heads, or applied them to various parts
of their body. They pinched them, pricked them,
dragged them about, blew tobacco smoke up their
noses ; there was no cruelty, however mean, or small,
or barbarous, which came into their heads, that tbey
did not practise. As to the women, the insults they
had to endure canuot be described. They had no
pity on their victims until they saw them fainting
away, then they recovered them, but only to begin
afresh their tortures.
This method of conversion was so effectual that out
of 25,000 members of the Reformed Church in Beam
only 1,000 remained firm. The triumph was cele-
brated by a grand mass, and by processions in which
the converts were paraded.
From Beam the conquering troops marched to
Montauban, where the same process was repeated with
the same results ; out of the twelve or fifteen thousand
persons of which this important Church was composed,
only twenty or thirty families saved themselves by
flight into the woods or adjacent country. The ruin
of the Church of Montauban was followed by all the
others in its neighbourhood. Realmont^ Bruniquel,
MASSACRE AT BERGERAC.
ISI
Negrepelisse_, etc., severally passed througli a similar
experience.
The fate of the Churches of Lower Guienne and
Perigord was equally sad, and to show that the final
apostasy was one which we should not, even if we had
the heart, dare to blame, we will relate the case of
Bergerac on the Dordogne.
This town, to-day only numbering some 12,000
inhabitants, contained at this time, it is said, a popula-
tion of 50,000, and was from its commercial activity
a serious rival to Bordeaux. For three years it had
been harassed by the soldiers who, in the expressive
language of an eye-witness of the Mission hottoe, ^ had
eaten it up to the bones.^ Two companies of cavalry
were first sent, merely to observe the inhabitants,
thirty-two other companies soon followed. Then came
the commander Boufflers and the intendant Foucault,
accompanied by the bishops of Agen and Perigueux.
Two hundred of the citizens were summoned to tlie
Hotel de Ville, and told that the king willed that they
should go to mass, and that if they did not do it
willingly they would be forced to constrain them.
The citizens unanimously declared that their lives and
property were in the hands of his majesty, but God
alone was the Master of their conscience, and that they
resolved to suff'er all rather than disobey its monitions ;
upon which they were told to prepare to receive a
punishment worthy such obstinacy. Thirty-two more
companies of cavalry and infantry were then sent for,
which, with the thirty -four already in the town, made
sixty-six, which were quartered on the Protestants,
with the injunction to exercise upon their hosts every
sort of violence until they had extorted from them a
promise to do all that was ordered. This injunction
having been faithfully carried out, the miserable victims
were again taken to tlie Hotel de Ville, where being
1 82 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
again pressed to change their religion they declared
with tears in their eyes that they could not. Upon
which thirty-four more companies were sent for, so
that now the Protestants of Bergerac were delivered
over to one hundred companies of soldiers,, who acted
as wolves among a flock of sheep. A whole com-
pany would be lodged in one house, costing a man
who was not worth 10,000 livres, 150 livres a day,
merely for their maintenance. When they had thus
ruined their hosts thej sold off their furniture at a
nominal price. But this was not all : they tied up by
the neck the various members of the family, father,
mother, children, keeping watch that no one should
come to assist them, and kept them in this state for
two, three, four, five, and six days without food or any-
thing to drink, and without permitting them to go to
sleep. ^Ah ! my father, ah ! my mother, I can bear it
no longer ! ' cries from one side a child in a dying voice.
'Alas ! my heart begins to fail me!' cries the wife; and
the brutal soldiery, far from being touched, torment
them only the more, terrifying them with menaces
uttered with horrid oaths. 'You dog, B . . .
won't you be converted ? won't you listen to us? You
shall be converted. You dog, B . . . this is what
we've come for.' At which the priests who stood by
only laughed. Of course, for it could have but one end,
nature could hold out for a certain time, but at last all
gave in, crushed by tortures fiends only could conceive.
There was no safety but in flight, and when the troops
arrived at Bordeaux, the greater part of the mer-
chants fled, abandoning their houses and their property.
The terror inspired was so great that there was no
more need of violence. It was enough to speak of the
dragoons to bring every one to his knees. A reign of
terror had succeeded ; it was a lesson the French people
did not forget.
DESTRUCTION OF TEMPLES. 183
The klng^s council was itself astonislied at the
success of this last effort. Louvois wrote to his
father^ the chancellor, Le Tellier : ^16,000 conversions
have been made in the whole of Bordeaux, and 20,000
in that of Montauban. The rapidity with which the
affair proceeds is such that before the end of the
month there will not remain 10,000 religionaries in
all Bordeaux, where there were 100,000 the 15th of
last month.'
This letter was written early in September, 1685;
on the 22nd of the same month the Marquis de
Montanegre arrived at Ninies with two companies of
dragoons to carry out an edict of the previous July,
interdicting for ever the exercise of the pretended
Reformed religion in the episcopal cities, an edict de-
manded by the assembly of the clergy held at Ver-
sailles, in which the flowery Bishop of Valence had
complimented Louis on the extreme grace with which
he had managed his missions.
The Marquis de Montanegre was kind enough to
allow the Nimois Reformed Church to assemble in
their temple for the last time. Cheiron, the leading-
pastor among the moderates, ascended the pulpit and
preached a pathetic discourse, in which he appealed to
the congregation to persevere at every cost and every
sacrifice, even to death, in order to obtain the crown
of the martyrs glorified on high. 'We swear it!' cried
a multitude of voices amidst a burst of sighs and tears,
sobs and lamentations.
The next morning the authorities, followed by a
crowd of people, arrived to close the temple officially.
Cheiron and another pastor, Paulhan, were on the
door- steps, and as they approached, Paulhan exclaimed
in despair, ' No more temple, no more life V 'It is
not the time to groan or lament/ said the royal official,
' but to conform docilely and without resistance to the
1 84 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
will of til e monarch/ Seals were then placed on the
door, and a temple in which the hymn of praise and the
preaching of the Word had gone on for a hundred and
nineteen years was finally closed. In a few days, Elie
Cheiron and Pierre Paulhan themselves illustrated the
truth of Paulhan^s exclamation, for they both abjured
the Reformed faith and received the kiss of peace from
the Bishop of Nimes.
The total number of conversions brought about by
the Mission hottee was reported as 250,000. The
work of demolishing the Huguenot temples went on
with equal speed. The following is a list of the
temples condemned during the first fortnight in Sep-
tember, 1685, twenty-nine in all :
1st. Vans, Fraissinet, and Saint- Julien d^Arpaon.
3rd. Sauve, Aulas, Saint Martin, Lansuscle, and
Barre to disappear.
4th. Valleraugue and Yebron.
5tli. Bourdeaux to be razed to the foundation.
Saint Christol near Alais, Tournac near
Anduze, and Branoux.
6th. Salavas and Pompidou.
7th. Anduze, Cardet, Ribaute, Lagorce, and Saint
Martin de Boubeaux to be demolished.
9th. Puylaurens, the material to be used in re-
building the Catholic church of that
town ; Pons, to become a house for the
education of female children of the new
converts.
13th. Mondardie, Meyrueis, Vallerauve, Great
Gallargues, Aulas, and Tournac, all
pulled down this day.
The demolition of the synagogues of Satan extended
to private houses. It was enough that a preaching
had taken place in a house, even by a layman, for the
FLIGHT OF THE HUGUENOTS. 185
house to be razed to the ground. On the 14th of
September, Louvois warns the intendant Baville that
the minister Havart has preached in four houses in a
place called La Salle in the Cevennes, and he is to
order the Duke of Noailles to raze these houses even
with the ground^ his majesty being well persuaded
that such an example will remove any desire on the
part of the religionaries to lend their houses for
preaching, to the prejudice of the laws.
The same exterminatory zeal committed to the
flames religious books published by the Huguenots.
Thus, at Bergerac, the newly converted were required
to deliver them up, when they were all burnt in the
street (Sept. 27th).
By October the people were flying in all directions,
seeking sea-ports like Nantes, or if towards the east,
striving to get into Switzerland. The faithful among
the nobility and gentry — and we may be sure that to
have remained faithful in such an hour they must have
been men and women of the purest metal — these great
souls shone brightly. Their cJidteauXj still surrounded
in the eyes of courtiers with a certain sacredness, were
points of refuge for fugitives, and to this very period
had maintained the right of public worship. They
now received warnings, interdictions ; nevertheless
several of these noble ladies had the courage to go
from house to house sustaining the weak and animat-
ino- their couragfe. On the 8bh of October, Louvois
issues an order to confine all such ladies to their
own houses, and put a guard at their expense.
A letter of the eminent Jean Claude (1619), the last
of the pastors of Charenton, written to his son on
the 12th of October, depicts the sorrowful state of
the ruined Churches. ^All Lower Languedoc has
yielded; Anjou nearly the same. What will be the
success of the storm God only knows ; but already I
1 86 THE REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Lave no hopes of three quarters and a half. Many are
called, but few are chosen. As to myself, I shall
stand firm, please God, until the end, and do not
dream of going away until the last extremity. God
will give me the grace to glorify Him until the end.
I look to His pity for this."*
Five days after this letter was written, on the 1 7th
of October, Louis XIV. signed the Edict of Revocation.
The next day it was taken to the chancellor, Le Tellier,
who sealed it with the great seal of France. When he
had done this, the old man expressed his joy in the
words of Simeon : ^ Now let Thy servant depart in
peace, for mine eyes ha,ve seen Thy salvation.^ So at
least it is said, and we have Bossuet's authority for
saying that such were indeed his sentiments on the
occasion. Six days after he died.
XXIV.
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
The revocatory edict suppressed the legal exercise of
the Reformed worship in France. All pastors were
•to quit the kingdom in a fortnight, under penalty of
being sent to the galleys. If they abjured, they were
to have a salary one- third larger than they ah-eady
enjoyed, with a half revertible to their widows ;
the expense of academic studies was to be defrayed
if they wished to enter at the bar. Parents were
forbidden to instruct their children in the pretended
Reformed religion, but were eujoined to have them
baptized and send them to Catholic churches, under
a penalty of 500 francs. All refugees were to return
to France within four months, under penalty of the
confiscation of their property. No religionists were
to attempt to emigrate, under penalty of being
REVOCATION OF THE EDICT. 187
sent to the galleys if meD_, and seclusion for life if
women.
Such were the terms of this infamous edict. If
ever the throne of wickedness framed mischief by
statute it was on this occasion.^
Sydney Smith is reported to have advised men to
take short views of life. In history the reverse is the
only wise plan. Examine^ reader^ the history of
another century, and then you will be able to judge
if Le Tellier or his master had any reason to con-
gratulate themselves on the fatal work of this 18th of
October, 1685.
1 Ps. xciv. 20.
APPENDIX.
{Sec page 125.)
Psaume LXVIII,
Melodie dc xxxvi., do Matthieu Gkeiter antcricure a 1530.
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